Crypto Rip-off: SpaceX Tokens for Sale

Authored by: Neil Tyagi  

Rip-off artists know no bounds—and that additionally applies to stealing your cryptocurrency. Crypto scams are like another monetary rip-off, besides the scammers are after your crypto belongings fairly than your money. 

Crypto scammers use many techniques in different monetary crimes, corresponding to pump-and-dump scams that lure buyers to buy an asset with pretend claims about its worth or outright makes an attempt to steal digital belongings. 

This time scammers have been attempting to get an investor to ship a digital asset as a type of cost for a fraudulent transaction. 

It begins with a Tweet used as bait to lure harmless cryptocurrency buyers into buying a non-existent token, associated to a reputed firm, SpaceX. 

The theme used right here by scammers is the sale of the official cryptocurrency of SpaceX. Within the above picture we will additionally see the attain of the tweet is excessive. (224.4K views) 

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The hyperlink current on this tweet redirects to  house[-]launch[.]internet, which is already marked as malicious by McAfee. 

A WHOIS search on the positioning reveals it’s hosted on Cloudflare. Cloudflare has more and more grow to be the primary selection for scammers to host malicious web sites and defend their belongings. 

A WHOIS lookup on the area reveals redacted private info. No surprises there  

When we click on on the hyperlink, it takes us to a login web page and asks for AreaX login credentials. This web page was designed as a phishing web page for individuals who have actual SpaceX login credentials. 

For individuals who don’t have SpaceX credentials, they’ll use the signup hyperlink.  

After we log in, it redirects to a touchdown web page the place one can buy the supposedly authentic cryptocurrency launched by SpaceX

As you may see, it impersonates because the official SpaceX portal for purchasing their token. It additionally has all the weather associated to SpaceX and its branding. 

In the above picture, we will see that scammers are using the social engineering trick of FOMO (Worry Of Lacking Out) as they’ve created a timer showing that the pretend tokens are solely obtainable for buy for the subsequent 10 hours. This additionally makes certain that the rip-off would finish earlier than all of the on-line safety distributors flag the positioning. 

Scammers also enable customers to buy pretend tokens from about 22 cryptocurrencies, the distinguished being Bitcoin, Ethereum, and USDT. 

Scammers even supply a bonus of pretend SpaceX tokens if customers are able to buy a minimal quantity

Right here we will discover the BTC pockets handle of the scammers and see the transactions associated to those wallets. 

The crypto pockets addresses of scammers for the next currencies are.  

• BTC bc1qhhec8pkhj2cxtk6u0dace8terq22hspxkr5pee 
• USDT 398a9BF5fe5fc6CaBB4a8Be8B428138BC7356EC1 
• ETH 16a243E3392Ffd9A872F3fD90dE79Fe7266452F9 

Taking a look at transactions associated to those addresses, we discover individuals have grow to be victims of this rip-off by sending funds to those wallets. The Bitcoin pockets above has gathered round 2,780 US dollars. You may also see three of the final transactions made to the account. 

Equally, for Ethereum, the scammers have gathered round 1,450 US {dollars} 

We noticed two standard cryptocurrencies, however scammers are utilizing about 22 totally different crypto wallets.  

Crypto phishing scams always evolve, and new techniques emerge often. Customers ought to take the initiative to coach themselves in regards to the newest phishing strategies and scams concentrating on the cryptocurrency group. Additionally, keep knowledgeable by researching and studying about current phishing incidents and safety greatest practices. 

IOC (Indicator of Compromise)