A “huge increase” in cryptocurrency scams linked to false campaigns for the people of Ukraine has been detected by specialized cybersecurity firm Cyren. His research and analysis team warned about the “blatant exploitation” of the human drama after the invasion of Russia.
The US firm discovered an “endless wave” of fraudulent email campaigns. In the subject line, the criminals include messages such as “Help Ukraine”, “Help the victims of the Ukrainian war” and “Help Ukraine stop the war! – humanitarian fundraising.”
Cyren discovered in the two-week period of March 2022 more than 100,000 messages with such requests. While more than 50% of them are routed through the United States, the researchers found messages originating from all over the world, including countries like Indonesia, Brazil, India, South Africa and Colombia.
“Unsurprisingly, a large number of emails are sent from spoofed addresses with Ukraine-related domain endings to increase their ‘authenticity’. However, a significant number are sent from random Gmail addresses, revealing the arrogance of cybercriminals.” corporate blog.
The modus operandi is as follows: criminals create websites using a site builder and associate it with a domain, usually including the name of the European country, to increase legitimacy. For English speakers, a good example would be “help-ukraine-now.today”. They then broadcast the URL to drive traffic to the site, where they list Bitcoin and Ethereum addresses.
The experts also reported that fraud is rampant on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, calling on users to “remain vigilant and understand that even social networks can be, and often are, used by cybercriminals to increase their reach. of their scams.”
According to Cyren, Ukraine has received more than $50 million in cryptocurrency donations since the start of hostilities in late February 2022. The aid is channeled through the Ukrainian government’s Twitter account, which has requested Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether and Polkadot.
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