[2017-11-03]Bitcoin scams 'getting more sophisticated' as value of cryptocurrenc

[hugeblack]

After just getting home from an overnight shift, Jason Hall wanted to make a quick bitcoin trade before getting some much-needed rest.

But scammers had manipulated Google search results for his trading site, and within minutes his real account had been hacked and his money was being siphoned off to scammers.

"I just typed [my trading website] into Google and clicked on the link at the top," Mr Hall of Perth explains.

[iamTom123]

Scammer artists are now getting the foothold they are looking for in the Bitcoin and cryptocurrency market. Unfortunately, I also experienced the same scam when most of the tokens and coins I bought under the Ethereum ecosystem got transferred by a phisher. I suspected that I was able to login to a fake MyEtherWallet account from the link shared in the Slack emails. Slack got a bug that scammers and phishers exploited so they can be able to send emails containing the fake URL to all Slack users -- unfortunately Slack has not yet able to closed the gap on this problem despite the pleadings from many members. MEW has many weaknesses that a good programmer can easily exploit because aside from phishing some members are reporting of transfers of funds (usually Eth) even without them logging in to their accounts...though this can be very technical for me so i could not explain the details as to what can possibly happened.

[Coin-Keeper]

Why not just get a hardware wallet and end all of this nonsense?  BTC are now over 7K so a 100 dollar hardware wallet is so cheap for protection.  Same with all the Alt's.

[hatshepsut93]

With the rise of Bitcoin's adoption comes the rise of scammers and hackers who will target Bitcoin users. And new users are especially at risk, because they don't know all the details of security, because no one actually talks about it - you have to read Bitcoin forums regularly to get knowledge about all the possible attacks and how to prevent them. Also, there's a problem with usage of Bitcoin - it's easy to tell people to use hardware or paper wallet and hodl, but if you want to spend Bitcoin, you'll have to face the risks of storing your wallet on PC or smartphone, which might make it vulnerable to malware.
I hope that in the future security of Bitcoin clients will vastly improve so Bitcoin will be easier to use for everyone.

[Nameless27]

This is a must that most of the traders and investors report this kind of phishing scam website and the website owners themselves must be aware of any mimicking of they’re legitimate website be monitored and give announcements to its users for this kind of thing. It’s really sad that scammers are making money from this, it is insanely inappropriate behaviour.

Scammers makes money for our weakness hoping only the same way to them that the payment of they’re bad crimes must be doubled in return. Time will tell when will be the end of this but only thing we can do is be careful on our own investments.

[Iranus]

The precautions that services take to help prevent their customers from getting scammed are also getting somewhat better.  MyEtherWallet has added a banner at the top of their real website which tells you to avoid ever clicking on links from Slack or other platforms which scammers have been using to take people's funds.

Unfortunately, scams are an inevitable part of a decentralised system.  It forces people to take responsibility for their funds and be careful, which is part of sovereignty.

Alex Saunders has been trading cryptocurrencies from Launceston for five years and has seen scams become more sophisticated, including phishing scams, pyramid schemes and websites that tout extraordinary returns.

Ponzi schemes which accept BTC have existed for quite a long time, and they have been used to scam huge amounts of people over the last few years.  This increase in value has not affected them as much as the article claims.

[Qartersa]

True enough. Now that these scammers knew of Bitcoins' value, they will do everything in their power to get into the business to make money out of it. These people are experts on deceiving people through selling the product, as in this case, Bitcoins, to others who are naive about the nature of Bitcoins. Thus, I think people who use Bitcoins have to be very cautious in terms of dealing with it since it already involves a huge sum of money. 

[Embeco]

It's not a problem of scammers getting better. It's a problem of blockchain usability NOT getting better. Only few people fall for scams like "Indian Microsoft Support" or "Persian Princes" nowadays. The blockchain however is still so hard to handle for the average user that it's easy to trick them into losing their funds. We don't have a scammer problem, we have a usability problem.

[eckmar]

Its nothing new or sophisticated. Simple phishing scam is there for everything (accounts most) that hold any value. If you fall for this type of scam then you are really not being any careful.

[Slow death]

These guys who create these articles exaggerate a lot, it is not today that there are scammers, many hyip sites steal between $5000 to $25000 and daily are many hyip/ponzi sites created. At present many ICOs steal millions of dollars... so it is not because of the increase in the price of bitcoin that it makes the scammers use more sophisticated techniques to rob people. scammers will always evolve


Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales called initial coin offerings (ICOs) an "absolute scam"

[ApocalypseNow]

Its nothing new or sophisticated. Simple phishing scam is there for everything (accounts most) that hold any value. If you fall for this type of scam then you are really not being any careful.

I agree. Like the report said, "he's in a rush" which means he really does not take precautions when opening any site related to his account. He should have bookmarked the site.

[entrepmind23]

Its nothing new or sophisticated. Simple phishing scam is there for everything (accounts most) that hold any value. If you fall for this type of scam then you are really not being any careful.

Right! Even before the existence of cryptocurrencies, there are already scammers and phishers existing to get hold of the bank accounts like sending an email stating that you need to update the information and when you update in their site which only the observants can really notice as they are almost the same, by the time you entered the info then say goodbye to your money. It is the same to cryptocurrencies now, scams are happening everywhere because I always receive an e-mail from slack stating that I need to update my MEW because of some upgrade but thankfully, I am skeptic so I search for more information and discovered to never click a link in e-mails from slack regarding MEW.

It would always be better to bookmark the site you are trading and always using so that you can avoid clicking phishing sites because most of the sites at the top of google search are advertisements and if you are not vigilant then there is a possibility you will be scammed.

[vit05]

I have received a lot of scam emails on my dump address. I think it is easy to have at least 3 address for different things and never use the personal to things related to money, blockchain, and banks. The scammers will always try something new, banks spend a shit load of money to prevent that. And still, everyday someone loses money using internet bank. So, it is expected that Bitcoin will suffer the same.