Featured in this episode of Chaos Lever
Crypto scam sites could really be classified as basically any site that offers to sell you crypto. But in this case we’re talking about a specific grouping of sites meant to suck you into a bogus rewards scheme.
Trend Micro has spotted more than 1,000 sites under different domains that are all running the same basic scam.
It starts with a message claiming you have won a fractional amount of BitCoin on some investing site, usually around $25k. The link takes the victim to a legitimate website (in terms of HTTPS and trust ratings) and prompts them to deposit a smaller amount, usually in the hundreds of dollars, to confirm account ownership before the transfer can take place.
Predictably, the transfer never occurs and the victim is out the few hundred dollars. Based on research by a public Telegram channel, the actors behind the scam have cleared a little over $5M in the last four months. Even worse, this is an affiliate scam program run by Russian Hacking group Impulse, making the process of establishing such scam sites as simple as signing up for an account.
So as a quick reminder, if you get a link claiming you’ve just won something, the only thing you’ve won is less money in your bank account.