Fraudsters got cryptocurrencies for $1.6 million thanks to fake celebrity streams – Bits Media

Large company Group-IB, working in the field of cybersecurity, reported, that there has been another wave of cryptocurrency fraud on YouTube. The attackers obtained assets for $1.6 million.

As reported by TASS agency with reference to the press service of Group-IB, scammers use videos of people popular in the crypto community, people like Brad Garlinghouse (Brad Garlinghouse) or Vitalik Buterin. They modify videos and edit them into streams, in which they promise to double any amount of cryptocurrencies, received to their wallet. Of course, funds remain at the scammers' addresses.

Fake stream with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin watched 165 000 spectators. Some of them believed the scammers and transferred funds to their address.. Owners of assets in the Ethereum network transferred coins and tokens worth $933 900.

Another scheme targeted NFT holders. In the description of the video, the scammers posted a link to a phishing site and promised a special collectible theme token, who will leave their data - password and account recovery key.

“In three months of this year, more than 580 domain names, related to fraudulent distributions, which is three times more, than for the entire previous year. Main number of domains, involved in broadcasts, appeared with 13 February through the Russian registrar Reg.ru. Analysis of the domain infrastructure showed, that several resources are connected and registered for one person", – said Deputy Head of CERT-GIB Yaroslav Kargalev.

At the beginning of the year, hackers used a similar scheme - they hacked dozens of popular channels about cryptocurrencies on YouTube and posted videos with the “distribution” of digital assets.