Photo: Ozan KOSE / AFP / Getty Images
Researchers from the firm Akamai Technologies detected a new type of cryptocurrency scam that uses the name of Amazon to try to steal bitcoins of his victims.
Experts explain that fraud is committed by criminals taking advantage of a “time-sensitive” decoy, this means that people feel that If they don’t invest their money quickly, they could miss out on a lucrative business opportunity.
The fraudulent campaign is developed as follows. Scammers send messages through social networks and groups of cryptocurrency enthusiasts in which they include a fake link to a story posted on “CNBC Decoded”, a fake news site.
In the note they point out that the price of the “Amazon crypto token” is expected to skyrocket in the next few hours after it hits the market. They assure that this is an investment opportunity that will not be repeated.
Subsequently, from that website, it redirects people to a cryptocurrency “pre-sale” platform where they must register and carry out the payment of cryptocurrencies in bitcoin or ethereum.
“Cyber attackers prefer payments in cryptocurrencies, since this simplifies the fraudulent transaction, allows the evasion of financial regulatory inspection and prevents their identities from being exposed”, they argue from Akamai Technologies.
As part of the scam, the criminals also offer a referral program through which they offer supposed benefits to their victims for recommending the cryptocurrency to their family and friends.
Investigation by Akamai Technologies further revealed that 98% of the people who entered the fraudulent website were mobile users.
“These numbers are not surprising, since similar trends were observed in the use of mobile devices in cryptocurrency scams in previous investigations,” they point out.
They argue that This is because mobile devices are the main mechanism for consuming Internet content, either through social networks, news pages or games.
“When looking at the geographical breakdown of victims of the campaign, it is shown that the 29 % are located in North America, the 35 % in South America and the 27 % in Asia. The fact that victims are fairly evenly distributed across these continents shows that this is a global campaign that is not targeted at specific geographic locations,” they conclude.
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