Kaspersky Lab has estimated that cybercriminals were able to steal over 21,000 ETH (or over $10 million at the current exchange rate) from unsuspecting users using fraudulent and “social engineering” schemes last year.
The experts noted that cyber-criminals resort to classical phishing techniques to achieve their goal. However, quite often they “go beyond the ‘ordinary’ scenarios we have become familiar with.”
“The results of our research show that cyber-criminals are adept at keeping up to date and developing their resources to achieve the best possible results in cryptocurrency phishing. These new fraud schemes are based on simple social engineering methods, but stand out from common phishing attacks because they help criminals make millions of dollars,” said Nadezhda Demidova, Lead web content analyst, Kaspersky Lab.
Initial coin offering (ICO) investors are one of the most popular targets of these entities. To lure these investors into their trap, cyber-criminals create fake web pages that replicate the official ICO websites, or try to gain access to their contacts in order to send a phishing email with a wallet address for investors to send their cryptocurrency to.
The experts pointed out that cyber-criminals have targeted well-known ICO projects in the recent past such as Switcheo ICO, OmaseGo ICO, and Telegram ICO.
Another growing trend is cryptocurrency giveaway scams in which unsuspecting victims are asked to send a small amount of cryptocurrency in exchange for a much larger payout in the future. Kaspersky Lab said:
“Criminals have even used the social media accounts of well-known individuals, such as business magnate Elon Musk and the founder of Telegram messenger Pavel Durov. By creating fake accounts or replying to tweets from legitimate users through fake accounts, criminals are able to confuse Twitter users into falling for the scam by clicking on replies from fraudulent accounts.”
