Sunday, May 18, 2025
HomeCyber AttackRedThief Hacker Group Targeting Students in The U.K. to Steal Financial Data

RedThief Hacker Group Targeting Students in The U.K. to Steal Financial Data

Published on

SIEM as a Service

Follow Us on Google News

In an activity dubbed RedThief (aka RedZei), Chinese-speaking scammers have been targeting Chinese international students in the UK for more than a year.

There have been numerous reports of scammers calling from a UK phone number once or twice a month leaving a voicemail that is unusual for an automated voicemail and often leaving only one or two messages.

Threat actors use this as one of their main modes of operation. Apart from this here’s what Will Thomas (@BushidoToken), a cybersecurity researcher stated:-

- Advertisement - Google News

“A rich victim group that is ripe for exploitation is precisely what RedZei fraudsters used as their targets after careful research and careful selection.”

Aspect and Malicious Tradecrafts of the Operation

There is one remarkable characteristic of this operation, and that is how the threat actors were able to circumvent the steps that users had taken to prevent scam calls.

They do so by preventing the use of a phone number-based blocking system with help of pay-as-you-go UK phone numbers for each wave.

An attacker in this scenario switches between SIM cards from several mobile carriers, including the following ones:-

  • Three
  • O2
  • EE
  • Tesco Mobile
  • Telia

The main purpose of voicemails is to social engineer students into sharing personal information by impersonating companies such as:-

  • Bank of China
  • China Mobile
  • Chinese embassy

“RedZei gang includes leveraging Chinese enterprises, such as the Bank of China or China Mobile (CMLink) to social engineer the international students into providing their personal details.”

Secure Web Gateway – Web Filter Rules, Activity Tracking & Malware Protection – Download Free E-Book

Gurubaran
Gurubaran
Gurubaran is a co-founder of Cyber Security News and GBHackers On Security. He has 10+ years of experience as a Security Consultant, Editor, and Analyst in cybersecurity, technology, and communications.

Latest articles

VMware ESXi, Firefox, Red Hat Linux & SharePoint Hacked – Pwn2Own Day 2

Security researchers demonstrated their prowess on the second day of Pwn2Own Berlin 2025, discovering...

Critical WordPress Plugin Flaw Puts Over 10,000 Sites of Cyberattack

A serious security flaw affecting the Eventin plugin, a popular event management solution for...

Sophisticated NPM Attack Leverages Google Calendar2 for Advanced Communication

A startling discovery in the npm ecosystem has revealed a highly sophisticated malware campaign...

New Ransomware Attack Targets Elon Musk Supporters Using PowerShell to Deploy Payloads

A newly identified ransomware campaign has emerged, seemingly targeting supporters of Elon Musk through...

Resilience at Scale

Why Application Security is Non-Negotiable

The resilience of your digital infrastructure directly impacts your ability to scale. And yet, application security remains a critical weak link for most organizations.

Application Security is no longer just a defensive play—it’s the cornerstone of cyber resilience and sustainable growth. In this webinar, Karthik Krishnamoorthy (CTO of Indusface) and Phani Deepak Akella (VP of Marketing – Indusface), will share how AI-powered application security can help organizations build resilience by

Discussion points


Protecting at internet scale using AI and behavioral-based DDoS & bot mitigation.
Autonomously discovering external assets and remediating vulnerabilities within 72 hours, enabling secure, confident scaling.
Ensuring 100% application availability through platforms architected for failure resilience.
Eliminating silos with real-time correlation between attack surface and active threats for rapid, accurate mitigation

More like this

Critical WordPress Plugin Flaw Puts Over 10,000 Sites of Cyberattack

A serious security flaw affecting the Eventin plugin, a popular event management solution for...

Sophisticated NPM Attack Leverages Google Calendar2 for Advanced Communication

A startling discovery in the npm ecosystem has revealed a highly sophisticated malware campaign...

New Ransomware Attack Targets Elon Musk Supporters Using PowerShell to Deploy Payloads

A newly identified ransomware campaign has emerged, seemingly targeting supporters of Elon Musk through...