The cybersecurity analyst Serpent has revealed its picks for the scariest cryptocurrency and non-fungible token (NFT) scams currently active on Twitter..
the analystwho has 253,400 followers on Twitter, is the founder of the community and AI-based crypto threat mitigation system Sentinel.
In a 19-part thread posted on August 21, Serpent described how the scammers they go to inexperienced cryptocurrency users by using hacked websites, URLs, accounts, verified accounts, fake projects, fake launches and lots of malware.
One of the most worrying strategies comes amid a recent spate of cryptocurrency phishing scams and protocol hacks.. Serpent explains that the crypto recovery scam is used by bad actors to trick those who have recently lost funds in a widespread hack, stating:
“Simply put, they are trying to target people who have already been scammed and claim that they can get their funds back.”
According to Serpent, These scammers claim to be blockchain developers and target users who have been the victims of a recent large-scale hack or exploit, asking for a fee to deploy a smart contract that can recover their stolen funds. Instead, they “take the quota and run”.
This was seen in action after the multi-million dollar exploit that affected Solana wallets earlier this month.Heidi Chakos, the host of the Crypto Tips YouTube channel, warned the community to beware of scammers offering a hack solution.
Another strategy also takes advantage of recent exploits. According to the analyst, Fake Revoke.Cash scam tricks users into visiting a phishing website by warning them that their crypto assets may be at risk, using a “state of urgency” to get users to click on the malicious link.
Another strategy uses Unicode letters to make a phishing URL look almost exactly like a genuine one, but by substituting one of the letters with a Unicode-like one. In another move, scammers hack into a verified Twitter account, rename it, and use it to impersonate an influencer and promote fake releases or mintings..
The rest of the scams target users who want to participate in a get-rich-quick scheme.. This includes the Uniswap Front Running Scam, often seen as spam messages from bots telling users to watch a video on how to “earn $1,400 a day with Uniswap Front Running,” tricking them into sending their funds into a scammer’s wallet.
Another strategy is known as “Honeypot Account”, in which users are supposedly leaked a private key to access a loaded wallet. But, when they try to send crypto to fund the coin transfer, they are immediately sent to the scammers’ wallets via a bot..
Other tactics include asking collectors of high-value NFTs to “beta test” a new game or “play-to-earn” (P2E) project or commission fake work from NFT artists. But, in both cases, the ruse is nothing more than an excuse to send them malicious files. which can scrape browser cookies, passwords and extension data.
Last week, a Chainalysis report noted that crypto scam revenue fell 65% so far in 2022 due to falling asset prices and inexperienced crypto users exiting the market. Total revenue from crypto scams so far this year stands at $1.6 billion, down from $4.6 billion a year earlier.
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