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Infoblox screenshot of a fake Microsoft Windows Security Center pop-up claiming a threat was detected and access is blocked, layered over a spoofed Microsoft developer page with a fake Microsoft support phone banner.
Screenshot: Infoblox Threat Intel, Help TDS tech support scam lure impersonating Microsoft Windows security alerts, Oct 15, 2026 (fair use).

Detection

Infoblox Says It Can Flag Help TDS Scam Sites on Cloudflare Pages a Week Before Use, Ties the Network to Hotejka and Traces Its Call Center to a Remote Desktop Install

Infoblox reverse engineered the naming algorithms behind roughly 300 new Cloudflare Pages domains a day, flagged more than 16,000 that the Russian-language affiliate program Hotejka later used for Help TDS, cut customer exposure from a 4% daily peak to under 0.5%, and recorded a fake Microsoft support call that ended with a request to install UltraViewer.

Ava Okello, DetectionLondon6 min read

LONDON - Infoblox Threat Intel said on Oct. 15, 2026 that it can now spot the disposable Cloudflare Pages sites behind a long-running tech support scam network about a week before the operators put them to use, after reverse engineering the naming algorithms the group relies on to churn out roughly 300 new pages[.]dev domains a day. The research attributes the traffic distribution system known as Help TDS to Hotejka, a small Russian-language affiliate program that the company assesses is a rebrand of ROI777, an operation exposed in 2018. Infoblox also called one of the scam's phone numbers and recorded the exchange, which ended with a man posing as Microsoft support steering the researchers to download a free remote desktop tool, UltraViewer. For security operations teams, the report turns a familiar consumer nuisance into something more useful: a DNS detection problem with measurable results and an endpoint signal at the end of the chain.

Help TDS has run in various forms since at least April 2017, according to Infoblox. GoDaddy Security researcher Denis Sinegubko, whose Aug. 20, 2025 analysis traced the system's name to the /help/ redirect path it uses, documented a malicious WordPress plugin called woocommerce_inputs that Help TDS operators built and that GoDaddy estimated was installed on more than 10,000 sites. Infoblox said it now has direct access to Hotejka's affiliate panel, which offers that plugin along with lures that had not been documented before, and that the panel definitively ties Help TDS and the plugin to Hotejka. The company identified about 20 affiliates sending traffic to the system in 2026, including the better-known website malware operations Balada Injector, Detour Dog and DollyWay, which Infoblox said have been Hotejka affiliates for years. Balada Injector had gone quiet in December 2024, Infoblox said, but returned in May 2026.

The mechanics are built for volume. Affiliates who control compromised sites, malvertising, spam or social media posts send visitors to Help TDS through special URLs. The system, which Infoblox believes still runs on a Keitaro server, fingerprints the browser and checks location, then either serves the scam or sells the leftover traffic to downstream affiliate advertising platforms that push fake CAPTCHA pages and browser notification spam. Victims who get the scam first see a notice that an update is required and that the PC will restart, followed by full-screen warnings that Microsoft has disabled the machine, a browser lock that is hard to escape, alarms, a computerized voice and a "Microsoft Security" phone number. Code offered in the affiliate panel resolves the current command-and-control domain from a Telegram channel, falls back to a URL on pinkfels[.]shop, refreshes its cache every 30 seconds and shows the pop-up only during U.S. business hours, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Eastern, a window the code computes in Moscow time.

Infoblox flowchart showing affiliates sending traffic to a Keitaro-based Help TDS that fingerprints visitors, routing matches to a tech support scam and remote access tool install and remnant traffic to downstream affiliate platforms, scam landing pages and push-notification spam.
Diagram: Infoblox Threat Intel, Help TDS simplified traffic flow from publishing affiliates through the Hotejka-operated TDS to tech support scams or resold push-notification traffic, Oct 15, 2026 (fair use).The system fingerprints visitors and sends matches to a tech support scam.

Since April 2026, Infoblox said, Help TDS and its scam pages have lived on free Cloudflare Pages subdomains. The group's Telegram channel publishes a fresh set of command-and-control domains every five minutes and announces nearly 300 new pages a day, each of which resolves for about a week. Over six months Infoblox detected more than 20,000 such domains, plus about 10,000 more that appear to support phishing or decoy operations. When the move to Cloudflare began, up to 4% of Infoblox Threat Defense cloud customers were exposed to Help TDS on a single day. The detection problem is scale: Infoblox typically sees more than 125,000 new pages[.]dev subdomains every day, and the operator has used a dozen different domain generation algorithms in the last six months, about half of them extensively, with naming patterns that can overlap legitimate users.

Infoblox said its data scientists reverse engineered those algorithms and built filters to hold down false positives, putting the detector into production in July. Since then it has flagged more than 10,000 likely Help TDS domains before they appeared on the Telegram channel, with an average and median lead of seven days, and through mid-September it had detected more than 16,000 domains that Hotejka later used. In all it has detected about 30,000 domains, of which only about 16,000 were announced, suggesting the group creates far more pages than it deploys. Exposure among its cloud customers fell to under 0.5% in September, and Infoblox said some of what remains traces to misconfigured response policy zones. The company did not publish the detection logic. It did publish one example, linen-thorn-wild[.]pages[.]dev, which was first seen in DNS on Aug. 4, flagged on Aug. 6 and announced by the operator 10 days later, then used for a single day. It reappeared on Sept. 10 behind a different pair of Cloudflare nameservers, was flagged again that day and was announced on Sept. 20. Another domain, sun-sky-calm[.]pages[.]dev, showed a decoy advertisement when scanned directly; Infoblox flagged it on Sept. 8, three days before it went out as a command-and-control node.

Infoblox timeline showing the domain first seen in DNS Aug 4, detected as Help TDS Aug 6, announced on Telegram Aug 16, dormant about five weeks, detected again Sept 10 and announced Sept 20.
Diagram: Infoblox Threat Intel, lifecycle and detection of the Help TDS domain linen-thorn-wild[.]pages[.]dev, Oct 15, 2026 (fair use).One domain was flagged days before the operator announced it, then again after it returned.

Not every path runs through the TDS. Some affiliates point their own domains at Hotejka with a DNS CNAME record to hotcname[.]help, so the redirect happens in DNS. On Sept. 21, Infoblox recorded a chain that began at lib1[.]biz on a Trellian zero-click parking service, passed through a traffic marketplace and ad network trackers, and landed on a scam page at fosetya[.]shop, which carries that CNAME; Infoblox said the click was sold to Hotejka for $0.065. Over the past year hotcname[.]help has resolved to about 20 IP addresses, most recently 91.196.33[.]144, which Infoblox tied to a Russian-language dedicated hosting provider and which also hosts two domains that appear to be endpoints for a Russian-language VPN service, On1x VPN. Infoblox said it is unclear whether the VPN has any other relationship with Hotejka.

Infoblox flowchart from lib1.biz on a zero-click parking service through a fingerprinting router, a traffic marketplace, a click filter and an ad network tracker to a tech support scam landing page that CNAMEs to hotcname.help.
Diagram: Infoblox Threat Intel, Sept. 21, 2026 redirect chain from a parked domain to a Hotejka tech support scam page via a DNS CNAME to hotcname[.]help, Oct 15, 2026 (fair use).A Sept. 21 click chain ended on a scam page that points at hotcname.help.

The call center is where the scam meets the endpoint. In mid-June, Infoblox said, it triggered the browser lock from a research machine and dialed the number. The man who answered identified himself as Microsoft Technical Support, stressed there would be no charge, asked whether the device was personal or for work, walked the caller through logging out to clear the lock and then told them to go to ultraviewer[.]net and download the remote access software. The call was disconnected after the researchers questioned the need for more software when Windows Defender was already installed. Infoblox said it plans a separate report on UltraViewer abuse. In mid-September, Hotejka also told its Telegram followers it would soon launch a new monetization system based on forced browser extension installation, without saying how it would work.

For SOC teams, the report offers several concrete hooks. Infoblox published indicators including the trafficredirect and hotejka_hot Telegram channels, hotejka[.]ink, hotns[.]rest, hotcname[.]help, the addresses 62.113.117[.]248 and 91.196.33[.]144, sample pages[.]dev domains and three call-center numbers, and the report names pinkfels[.]shop as the affiliate code's fallback source for current domains. Because the scam pages are disposable, the durable signals sit in DNS and on the endpoint: short-lived pages[.]dev lookups from user workstations, resolution of CNAME chains that end at hotcname[.]help, and an unexpected UltraViewer or other remote desktop install shortly after a browser visit to an unfamiliar site. Infoblox's note that residual exposure traces partly to misconfigured response policy zones is a reminder to verify that DNS blocking feeds are actually enforced. GoDaddy's earlier guidance for site owners still applies upstream: protect WordPress administrator accounts with strong credentials and multifactor authentication and audit for unauthorized plugins, since stolen admin logins were the main way affiliates planted the plugin. The broader lesson is that a free hosting service generating more than 125,000 new subdomains a day can still be filtered when defenders model the attacker's naming habits rather than chase each domain after it goes live.

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Ava Okello covers detection engineering, EDR telemetry, and SOC hunting for SOCtember from London.

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