Everyone wants some free money and prizes, and that’s just a fact. This is why the scammy and colorful ads exclaiming that you’re the winner (of something) were so popular in the first Internet era. Now, those ads have evolved into the cryptocurrencyA digital currency running on a blockchain and built with cryptography. Contrary to central-bank issued currency, cryptocurrency issuance rules are... world, with fake crypto-giveaways on Discord.
According to the cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, a group of scammers is surrounding the cryptocurrency servers on Discord, offering supposed crypto-giveaways via private messages. They pretend to be crypto-exchanges and use a lot of emoji’s and exclamations to announce the contacted person is the lucky winner of a huge crypto-giveaway. To claim their free money, this person only needs to register on the site and deposit some funds.
It’s worth mentioning that this can be a legitimate advertising strategy from the exchanges. They use to offer some crypto-giveaways on special occasions to attract new users and make them discover their products. However, the real exchanges don’t use to talk with any specific person, let alone via private message; unless it’s for support.
That’s a telltale sign of the scam, even if the scammers made the effort to create fake sites for the supposed exchanges with legitimate-like registration forms and accounts. More than that, as indicated by Kaspersky, they’re also applying an additional tactic now: they took the time to create fake cryptocurrency news portals to promote their supposed services.
“… the main innovation is the use of fake cryptocurrency news portals. Their function is twofold. First, links to the fake exchanges from other sites help boost the fakes’ search results. Second, their very existence adds plausibility; trust in the media remains quite high, and the articles and posts underscore the portals’ perceived reliability”.
Fake exchanges with fake crypto-giveaways
As far as Kaspersky explained, the malicious domains hosting these fake exchanges are Bitcmoney, Itmaxbit, Crypto24cap, and Bit24cap; but they can be more. So, first, someone from those fake companies contacts the victims via private messages. They offer unbelievable amounts to the supposed winner, even over $24,000 in Bitcoin and other cryptos.
Then, if the victim wants to register, receives an email with a code for the platform. The fake news portals help the victim to decide since they always state good things about the “exchange”. When the user transfers a minimum amount (over 0.02 BTCAn abbreviation for Bitcoin.), the giveaway never happens and the withdrawals become impossible.
In these cases, as indicated by Kaspersky, you should be immediately suspicious if the theoretical gift is “requiring a payment to receive payment”. Additionally, never trust in only one portal to tell you the truth about a service. There are fake sites and sponsored articles everywhere, so, you should always check several webs and opinions to make a proper judgment. Do your own research!
Featured Image by MoneyforCoffee / Pixabay
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