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Resurgence of Fake Cryptocurrency Giveaways

A resurgence of scam posts and sites have been found that are pretending to be Bitcoin and Ethereum giveaways originally reported by security researcher Frost orDiane Sheldrake on Twitter. These scammers are impersonating celebrities such as Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, and John McAfee, CEO of McAfee antivirus, in an attempt to trick users into giving them the user’s cryptocurrency. The malicious sites state that if the user sends them 0.05 to 5 Bitcoins or the Ethereum equivalent to the listed address, the giveaway promises a tenfold in return. The two examples found show a pool of cryptocurrency that is left to be claimed and a streaming list that allege transactions previously completed. This list is supposed to trick unsuspecting users into thinking that the pages are legitimate. The scams are also being promoted through Twitter by spoofing the names of the celebrities.  One of the scam sites has, at the time of this article, scammed people out of 0.418 bitcoins or approximately $4500.

Analyst Notes

As Cryptocurrency prices continue to rise, so shall the opportunity for scammers to take advantage of trusting people. Users are highly recommended to never take part in cryptocurrency giveaways. If it seems too good to be true, it’s not true.