New pig butchering scam looks to lure in victims with fake gold

Date:
Tue, 14 Feb 2023 13:49:17 +0000

Description:
No, you're not investing in gold with your new, attractive, best friend -
it's a scam.

FULL STORY ======================================================================

Cybersecurity researchers from Sophos have a new cyber scam that looks to
lure in victims with the promise of lucrative gold returns.

The two new "pig butchering" campaigns, which are elaborate fraud scams that can last for months, saw the attackers impersonate a wealthy, attractive female on social media, and approach potential pigs (victims).

After some back-and-forth, the attackers would try and convince the victims
to invest in a cryptocurrency platform, promising riches and wealth. The platform is actually fake and all of the invested money actually ends up on the accounts of the attackers. Going after the whole hog

What makes these new campaigns stand out is that the crooks are looking to diversify their portfolio. Usually, they would try and steal peoples cryptocurrency, mostly because its easier to steal and harder for law enforcement to confiscate and return.

However, the crooks were now observed moving into precious metals, as well.
Of the two campaigns, one is based in Hong Kong and involves a fake gold trading marketplace. The other one is based in Cambodia and involves stealing peoples cryptocurrency. Apparently, they managed to rake in $500,000 in just
a month.

Since the start of the pandemic, this type of cyberfraud has massively expanded, commented Sophos Sean Gallagher, principal threat researcher.

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This hot new crypto release could actually just be a huge scam

Crypto scams are now a billion-dollar market

These scammers are now targeting people on all major social media platforms
or even direct message, and theyre not limiting themselves to just exploiting crypto but also gold and other forms of currency or trading value. Theyre quite literally going after the whole hog.

According to Gallagher, the attackers were less polished in terms of social engineering, meaning they werent as convincing as some other threat actors. Technically, however, they were more sophisticated, as they used an elaborate combination of highly effective SEO, polished scam landing pages, and a pirated version of a legitimate trading app with additional malicious code.

They were also active in updating the scam infrastructure, to make sure they remain operational.

As usual, the best way to protect against these threats is to use common sense. If somethings too good to be true, it probably is. And when a
beautiful woman approaches you on LinkedIn with an investment opportunity, be very, very sceptical. These are the best firewalls today



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/new-pig-butchering-scam-looks-to-lure-in-victim s-with-fake-gold


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