[2018-05-10] BTC Wallet Electrum: ‘Bitcoin-stealing Malware’!

[Psicotico]

Popular bitcoin wallet service Electrum has released evidence demonstrating that copycat client “Electrum Pro” is “bitcoin-stealing malware.”

First launched in 2011, Electrum has long been one of bitcoin’s most popular wallet clients, and many users trust the wallet for its proven security, ease-of-use, and its support for advanced features like multisig authentication and compatibility with hardware wallets like Ledger and Trezor.

Recently, a new wallet that goes by a similar name — Electrum Pro — popped up with the domain name, electrum.com, clearly attempting to divert users from the official website at electrum.org.

The team behind Electrum now claims Electrum Pro is a malware meant to steal bitcoins. To make things worse, Electrum Pro comes above the legitimate Electrum on Google search because of Google Ads, a fact that will clearly trip up many users.

https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-stealing-malware-btc-wallet-electrum-exposes-malicious-copycat/

[ranman09]

Wow, thank you for this news. What google do on this? They should screen and monitor apps more.

[Kakmakr]

Yip, it is confirmed -:> Here is the proof that it is your first result, when you search for "Electrum". http://prntscr.com/jg52k7 ...Everyone should just report it as Malware here, https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/?hl=en

If a lot of people do this, then we can protect other people from losing money on these scams. We should all stand together when these things are being done to newbies. 

[butka]

This is terrible. I'm always amazed how far some people are willing to go to steal other people's money.

Yip, it is confirmed -:> Here is the proof that it is your first result, when you search for "Electrum". http://prntscr.com/jg52k7 ...Everyone should just report it as Malware here, https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/?hl=en

If a lot of people do this, then we can protect other people from losing money on these scams. We should all stand together when these things are being done to newbies. 

The malware is nowhere to be found in the google search results now, at least not in the nearest google data centers my browser uses. I guess the action was efficient and Google indeed banned the malicious ad.

The said thing is, Google doesn't seem to have qualified personal to audit crypto-related ads, so many malicious schemes go under the radar these days.

[Zadicar]

Popular bitcoin wallet service Electrum has released evidence demonstrating that copycat client “Electrum Pro” is “bitcoin-stealing malware.”

First launched in 2011, Electrum has long been one of bitcoin’s most popular wallet clients, and many users trust the wallet for its proven security, ease-of-use, and its support for advanced features like multisig authentication and compatibility with hardware wallets like Ledger and Trezor.

Recently, a new wallet that goes by a similar name — Electrum Pro — popped up with the domain name, electrum.com, clearly attempting to divert users from the official website at electrum.org.

The team behind Electrum now claims Electrum Pro is a malware meant to steal bitcoins. To make things worse, Electrum Pro comes above the legitimate Electrum on Google search because of Google Ads, a fact that will clearly trip up many users.

https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-stealing-malware-btc-wallet-electrum-exposes-malicious-copycat/

Ive seen this ads recently ago when I do tried out to download electrum wallet once again because I had my pc reformatted and my instincts tell me that this would really be just an another phishing or malware download attempts which I do only trust electrum.org among all links yet this is the legit ones and been commonly used. I didn't tried out to download or click the link yet I didn't even saw community feedback on this one and now it is really totally announce that this is an another malware attempt.

[InvoKing]

Now this is an important news. I wasn't aware of this scammy shit and probably many users could fall on it if they didn't concentrate a little bit.
While searching for electrum, the scam didn't appear but if you add dot com it will be the first result...
Should be mass reported to avoid scam.
Edit : reported to Google.

[jhenfelipe]

As long as the wallet did not come from the official website, don't trust. The problem is, there are people who are not paying so much attention on website URLs, so they will not even recognized if it's a phishing site or not. 

PS. Am I the only one thinking that the thread title should be Electrum Pro or Electrum copycat instead of just Electrum?

The malware is nowhere to be found in the google search results now, at least not in the nearest google data centers my browser uses. I guess the action was efficient and Google indeed banned the malicious ad.

Yes. Most likely the ad has been taken down already because it was reported.

[buwaytress]

Yip, it is confirmed -:> Here is the proof that it is your first result, when you search for "Electrum". http://prntscr.com/jg52k7 ...Everyone should just report it as Malware here, https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/?hl=en

If a lot of people do this, then we can protect other people from losing money on these scams. We should all stand together when these things are being done to newbies. 

Good call Kakmakr. I hope everyone takes a few minutes to report that as malware. It really doesn't take long, and if you like and use the software as much as I'm sure we all do, I think it's only a small favour to pay back to Thomas and the guys who develop Electrum. Even if you don't use it, it's a very small sacrifice of time to help make the space safer for newcomers. We were all new once, let's not forget that!

Adding on: looks like the reporting is working. My google search in two country settings doesn't show the malware link at all!

[InvoKing]

-snip-
PS. Am I the only one thinking that the thread title should be Electrum Pro or Electrum copycat instead of just Electrum?

Oh yeah, definitely. I forgot to mention that the title should be fixed to avoid confusion.
When I read it in the first place, I was saying "lol what" before realising it is talking about a copycat.

--> [2018-05-10] Fake BTC Wallet Electrum-PRO: ‘Bitcoin-stealing Malware’!

[Fatunad]

Yip, it is confirmed -:> Here is the proof that it is your first result, when you search for "Electrum". http://prntscr.com/jg52k7 ...Everyone should just report it as Malware here, https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_badware/?hl=en

If a lot of people do this, then we can protect other people from losing money on these scams. We should all stand together when these things are being done to newbies. 

Good call Kakmakr. I hope everyone takes a few minutes to report that as malware. It really doesn't take long, and if you like and use the software as much as I'm sure we all do, I think it's only a small favour to pay back to Thomas and the guys who develop Electrum. Even if you don't use it, it's a very small sacrifice of time to help make the space safer for newcomers. We were all new once, let's not forget that!

Adding on: looks like the reporting is working. My google search in two country settings doesn't show the malware link at all!

Seems like it does work because when i tried to seek on that copycat malware link i didnt found such thing.I was supposed to report that stuff for it to be removed so that new people wont really be prone to danger or even the experienced ones.There are really sometime on where no matter how aware we are there are instances which we do make careless moves.How much more for those who havent any idea.?

[vit05]

Due to false accusations from electrum.org, they have ruined our reputation and brand of Electrum Pro. They managed to trick several news outlets to slander us. We decided to go our seperate ways to work on different projects. Our domain ELECTRUM.COM is for sale now with a price of 25BTC, non-negotiable. Contact lucaslofgren@mail.com if you are interested.

Wishing everyone the best,

Lucas Lofgren and the Electrum Pro Team

They gave up the scam attempt and placed the domain for sale asking 25BTC. Funny that I would imagine someone using such tactics would ask for payment in BCH.