Cryptocurrency Scammers Are Lurking in the Shadows of Twitter

A new twist of online swindling is spreading on Twitter. Even though not everyone will catch the trick, thousands have already been duped in a scheme that siphoned away ethereum and Bitcoin holdings worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in a space of a week.

The trick is not such a complicated one: Fraudsters create a Twitter account that look quite similar to the accounts of popular cryptocurrency founders so they can impersonate such individuals. They then use the replica twitter accounts to defraud unsuspecting cryptocurrency buyers and sellers.

According to Crane Hassold, a threat intelligence manager at the security firm PhishLabs who was a former digital behavior analyst for the FBI, ‘it’s like a social media imitation with a typical Nigerian prince hustle.’

Hassold believes that it is impossible for Twitter to begin stopping the accounts; thus making it difficult to prevent such scams from happening

This scam is quite similar to that of a well know scheme in the game Eve Online in which fraudsters post ‘send a little, get a lot’.

However the new scam trending on Twitter is not making such a big buzz as people these days are well aware of how to spot fakes especially as it make no sense for someone to offer you large amounts of Bitcoin for no just cause.

A researcher for the Dallas Hackers Association explained that this scam is not meant for those who can spot the difference but those who are desperate to fall for such tactics; gullible investors in haste to make a quick buck in the crypto market.

Fraudsters are capitalizing on the instability of Bitcoin prices and are targeting people who will jump to make gains at any price increment.