NEW DELHI: Bill Gates and Elon Musk are titans of the tech industry and hardly need an introduction. Both tech honchos are active on Twitter as well. Interestingly, some scammers have reportedly duped several fans of both and many such personalities in the same industry, and have earned as much as $5000 (Rs 3.2 lakhs) in a single night. Here's how they did it.
This was fairly easy for the scammers. They took advantage of how people on Twitter seem to miss the minor details. As reported by the website hotforsecurity.bitdefender.com, some scammers in the past couple of weeks made several fake accounts of known tech personalities on Twitter.
The list included @WarrenBuffert, @Billgavtes, @SatoshiLitev, @elonnmuusk, @VittaliBuuteri and @officialmcafee. These may sound and look official but if you look closely, minor changes like a letter extra or different, make them fake. Scammers used these accounts to ask for Ethereum (a form of cryptocurrency) and make money overnight.
All these fake profiles tweeted the same thing but in different words and amounts. The most profitable accounts were said to be that of McAfee, Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin. While some of the accounts are suspended now, some still exist along with the post.
For instance, @WarrenBuffert posted "As many of you know I'm into cryptos now. Giving out 100 Ethereum for the first 100 people. All you have to do is to deposit 5 ETH to address below and it will circulate back to you as 100 ETH! #befast #warrengives 0x075cdb99ef001c53b2691d1a1e1c06fa53d45335. Hurry up!! #ETH"
This scam specially made for crypto users resulted in generating around $5000 overnight. What is worse is that these scammers can't be detected as cryptocurrency is anonymous by nature.
All said and done, this should come as a wakeup call for those dealing with cryptocurrency, to stay alert on social media and confirm details before transacting. You can still see several users venting their anger on the microblogging website.
This was fairly easy for the scammers. They took advantage of how people on Twitter seem to miss the minor details. As reported by the website hotforsecurity.bitdefender.com, some scammers in the past couple of weeks made several fake accounts of known tech personalities on Twitter.
The list included @WarrenBuffert, @Billgavtes, @SatoshiLitev, @elonnmuusk, @VittaliBuuteri and @officialmcafee. These may sound and look official but if you look closely, minor changes like a letter extra or different, make them fake. Scammers used these accounts to ask for Ethereum (a form of cryptocurrency) and make money overnight.
All these fake profiles tweeted the same thing but in different words and amounts. The most profitable accounts were said to be that of McAfee, Elon Musk and Vitalik Buterin. While some of the accounts are suspended now, some still exist along with the post.
For instance, @WarrenBuffert posted "As many of you know I'm into cryptos now. Giving out 100 Ethereum for the first 100 people. All you have to do is to deposit 5 ETH to address below and it will circulate back to you as 100 ETH! #befast #warrengives 0x075cdb99ef001c53b2691d1a1e1c06fa53d45335. Hurry up!! #ETH"
This scam specially made for crypto users resulted in generating around $5000 overnight. What is worse is that these scammers can't be detected as cryptocurrency is anonymous by nature.
All said and done, this should come as a wakeup call for those dealing with cryptocurrency, to stay alert on social media and confirm details before transacting. You can still see several users venting their anger on the microblogging website.
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