Hello friends how are you? As you saw in the title, this week they have tried to scam me twice, the truth is that in very creative ways, both times I have had suspicions since they contacted me and I have proceeded with caution to find out what it was about, I have kept in touch with individuals with the sole interest of knowing what they were up to and how they planned to scam me. As many of you know, I am very passionate about cybersecurity and I am always researching these topics to be as up-to-date as possible in this world that is becoming more and more difficult to know where the next attack may come from and when, so I try to be as possible alert.
In a year in which artificial intelligence (AI) almost allows you to do anything and we are close to a possible rise in the cryptocurrency market, scammers are hunting for possible victims to fill their pockets at the expense of our work.
The attacks are becoming more sophisticated and the strategies they use to try to deceive us and keep our money are becoming more credible. AI has made this work easier, since creating a false digital identity is very easy and cloning a web page is just a couple of clicks away. These digital scammers are always on the lookout and looking for possible victims, if you are a little careless they will catch you in their trap and when you realize it it is too late.
But okay, enough of the talk and I'm going to tell you in as much detail as possible how they have tried to deceive me twice this week.
First attempt
I chose the smallest book and then they explained the rules to me, I had to send it within 24 hours, I had to translate it manually without the help of software or AI, and they gave me the choice between Payeer, Paypal, Bitcoin, Ethereum and bank transfer to receive the juicy payment once the job was finished.
After reviewing the document with VirusTotal2, I downloaded and translated the book using Google Translate with the option to translate documents and contacted the “company” again, I sent them the document and they told me that they were going to review it to check that everything was well and then they paid me. After 5 minutes they write to me congratulating me that they had approved my work and that I should send my payment method to receive my money. Here I am going to make a stop to explain that it is impossible for them to have been able to review the book because I sent it protected by a password, so they did not even look at it. I sent them a Payeer account I created minutes earlier with one of these 5-minute emails. It didn't take long for them to write to me and explain that the $1,300 they were going to pay me had already been sent, but since they had recently changed servers, I had to send them $80 to activate the payment link and they would refund it to me.
You already know the rest, there they tried by all possible means to convince me to send them the money so they could pay me, and once the whole setup was unmasked I proceeded to block and report all the accounts they used to contact me.
Second try
He told me a story that he was working for an NFT game project and that they were looking for people to promote their game on X and that they would pay very well for it. I told him that I was interested in him sending me the information so I could do my research and tell him my answer (here I was intrigued because I didn't know how they were planning to deceive me) and before finishing the conversation I asked him if I had to send him money first to receive my payment(to see if it was a scam like the previous one) . and he said no.
He sends me a link to the project's website and its "white paper", I checked the links before clicking on them with VirusTotal and once reviewed I entered them, the page looks like a legitimate project, it has a user interface (UI) very presentable, I got ready to see the white paper and the first thing I read is that the project is in beta phase and that it is running on the Solana blockchain, until then everything is fine, until I see its roadmap and instead of Solana the game It was on Polygon.
To not make the story too long, I contacted the user again and told him that I was willing to make the tweets, what the job would be like and how much I would earn and where they would pay me, for each tweet I made they would pay me $10 and for each like and rt that they had those tweets I would get a bonus and for a tweet posted on my profile for a month the payment would be $100 plus the aforementioned bonuses. The payment would be in Ethereum (look at how many blockchains we are using) so far everything seems legitimate, right, because now is when the “magic trick” that they wanted to use on me comes.
He tells me that I had to write the tweets by hand so that they would be more credible that I downloaded the game launcher and installed it, that once installed it would enter the "DEBUG" section and that from there it would obtain my ID and it would be I would send her to give me authorization on the platform. You already saw the trap, right? Once you install the software on your PC and send your ID, you will be giving remote access to your PC and the attacker will take the opportunity to obtain your data, install malicious software, use your machine to attack other people (zombie), mine cryptocurrencies without your consent and another long list of things that I will not mention here and that you surely already know.
That's where the adventure ended because I already knew how he intended to attack me and I had already discovered what he wanted, as with the previous one, I proceeded to block and report all the accounts he used to contact me.
Moral of this, walk very carefully on the internet, distrust everyone and even more so if they offer things that are too good to be true. As I always tell you, study hard and be aware of the latest news about and attacks to be alert and not be caught off guard.
I hope that what I have told you helps you prevent either of these two forms of scams. That they raise awareness that the Internet is a dangerous place and even more so for us users who own cryptocurrencies. Tell me in the comments if you have ever been scammed in one of these ways or another, share so that it reaches more people and I'll see you next time.
1- *Revolico is a classified ads page in Cuba where products and services are sold and offered in the Cuban informal market.*
2- VirusTotal is a website where you can check files, urls, web pages, emails for free to see if they have viruses. The website has various antivirus engines with which it simultaneously checks what you send it for review.
Hardware used
💻 Dell Vostro-3500
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