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Prevailion Founder and CEO Karim Hijazi discusses the increase in ransomware attacks against businesses.
No, Elon Musk won’t give you a free watch or free Bitcoin on Twitter, but scammers will.
Scammers are students of human psychology, whether it’s fooling you into clicking on a fake email or offering you free fake content on social media.
And dropping Elon Musk’s name in a scam to lure unsuspecting people is a popular strategy for scammers, according to a new report.
“Elon Musk is an incredibly popular target for scammers and spammers on social media. Tie his name to something he has no involvement in and watch him fly,” Malwarebytes Labs said this week in an article by blog.
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Since October 2020, reports to the Federal Trade Commission on cryptocurrency scams have increased with nearly 7,000 people reporting losses of more than $ 80 million with a median loss of $ 1,900, according to the FTC.
This is about 12 times the number of reports and almost 1,000% more loss reported compared to the same period last year, the FTC said.
Recognized names
Promotional scams are usually about famous names. More than $ 2 million in cryptocurrency has been lost to Elon Musk impersonators over the past six months, according to the FTC.
Malwarebytes says a scam going around starts like this: A Twitter account goes viral with a popular tweet. Then a bot account responds with a screenshot. In this case, it appears to be showing Elon Musk, on Twitter, saying:
“Just Google ‘Topmid Dust Watch’ and thank me later”, – a reference to a map from the popular ‘Counter-Strike’ video game.
Dropping Elon Musk’s name in a scam to lure unsuspecting people is a popular strategy for scammers, according to a new report. (AP Photo / Matt Rourke) (AP Pictures)
These schemes “typically cause portals to ‘sell’ the item for a total of $ 0,” Malwarebytes said.
What the crooks want is your address and your credit card information to send you the “free” product, according to the report.
Generally speaking, you should avoid products in replies to social media posts, Malwarebytes said.
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“The same goes for promotions pushed by accounts you know, or even verified accounts. There is always a chance that what you see is the result of a compromise,” the report said, adding. you have no idea what awaits the other end of a link. “
The purpose of the ploy is to bypass spam detection, Malwarebytes said. Gmail and Outlook, for example, detect most scams and spam, so it can be difficult for crooks to get through these filters put in place by Google and Microsoft, respectively.
Bitcoin is also a favorite
A con artist posing as Elon Musk walked away with $ 560,000 in February.
In this case, a man received a Twitter notification that appeared to be from Elon Musk.
“Musk tweeted: ‘Dojo 4 Doge?’” The man told the BBC, referring to the dogecoin cryptocurrency.
The bogus contest invited participants to send in up to 20 bitcoins (over $ 1 million at the time) and they would double their money. The man sent 10 bitcoins and lost everything to the crooks.
It was the most lost in a single transaction, the BBC said, citing Whale Alert, which tracks cryptocurrency transactions.
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The crooks made $ 18 million in the first three months of this year, eclipsing the $ 16 million made in the 12 months of 2020, according to Whale Alert.
“Unfortunately, it’s very easy for crooks to set up social media accounts and pretend to be people,” Bitcoin.org says on its website.
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