Scammers posed as Australian police to steal crypto, authorities warn

[_act_]

For you to understand this, read about this scam yourself: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fraudsters-exploit-australia-cybercrime-portal-072826206.html

What I am very surprised about is how the scammers were able to make fake reports on Australia’s ReportCyber platform and makes it look legitimate.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) revealed that scammers are filing false reports through ReportCyber, a platform designed for citizens to report cybercrimes.

Using stolen personal data, the fraudsters contact victims pretending to be officers from the AFP, claiming their information is linked to crypto-related investigations. The goal is to trick victims into transferring digital assets into fake “secure” wallets.

I do not know how this is done by the scammers.

You can read the news in full on https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fraudsters-exploit-australia-cybercrime-portal-072826206.html

People need to be very careful but people also need not to be stupid. Even if you are talking with a police officer or an officer in charge of crime, why would you send bitcoin or crypto to the officer if he told you to do so? That is stupidity, although not officers but scammers that are doing it.

[Die_empty]

The AFP-led Joint Policing Cybercrime Coordination Centre found that the system’s design, which allows third parties to file reports on behalf of others, has been manipulated to reinforce these scams.

The scammers were able to exploit the system since people could report unbehalf of others. They will simply send false reports to Cybercrime Portal using stolen personal data. Using fake case number they contact thier victims. Since the information is coming from ReportCyber platform the fraudsters can easily contact victims pretending to be officers.

This is another level of criminal exercise. It is important to be careful even when it might be coming from respected authorities. Sensitive information like passwords or seed phrases should never be released to anybody. .

[Findingnemo]

Everything can be faked, so it's not a big surprise for me. But I just can't understand how the fake police officers convinced the victims of crypto scams to send them more crypto?

It is better to check the police officer and if there is any kind of payment involved in such situation always pay to the official accounts, there will be one for every government sector but police department unlikely to ask for money at all at any situation unless the person is tried to bribe the officer to fasten the process.

[mikel_012]

A credential might have leaked or maybe they found a bug in the ReportCyber platform to make fake requests in the system.

But I would never send my coins to anyone even if a report like this was real because it makes no sense to give your moner to another person when you can't even confirm if they are real or no. I would go to the police station myself to confirm and even then I would ask 10 times if this was necessary and could only do it if I was going to get arrested if I deny which I doubt it would happen

But did anyone fall for this?

[Hatchy]

A credential might have leaked or maybe they found a bug in the ReportCyber platform to make fake requests in the system.
But did anyone fall for this?

I was wondering if it were also possible for there to be an insider police whose also involved in the scam. Because it is not that easy to get hands on those kind of systems. But it most likely the scammers faked the reports and have their way. There's nothing that's impossible when it comes to these scammers, they can go extra miles just to get their victims into believing it's real. Most people as well are careless. It just doesn't make sense that you get such reports and fail to even ask any questions but immediately send them money. It shows that they might be one way involved ins one dirty works.

[EluguHcman]

The quick response of the legitimate Australian police was a very good move to alert it citizens and crypto users about this unfamiliar scheme were criminals have access to their Cybercrime officiating platform.

This scam scheme could be bit convinceable to vulnerables because, the criminals are parading and illegally operating in the legal postures with their compliance communications with the target being presented very genuinely.

With this legal disguise of scamming method, only users who are aware that even legal officials don't have the right to demand users private keys and asking them to send them crypto or even referring you to send your funds to an unknown wallets for any good looking reasons will escape this scheme because, the trick looks too genuine for those who tend to trust legal officials when it turns to security matters.

[Mia Chloe]

People need to be very careful but people also need not to be stupid. Even if you are talking with a police officer or an officer in charge of crime, why would you send bitcoin or crypto to the officer if he told you to do so? That is stupidity, although not officers but scammers that are doing it.

People can be very gullible and naïve sometimes and that's part of the reasons you see most of them getting scammed. Generally you'll notice that these scammers have two major methods they use to get a hold of their victims and both are either trying to make them trust them or make them afraid.

I want to classify this particular one as fear since most of them don't want to get into any trouble and as a result of that end up doing what the scammer wants out of fear.

[HajiBagi]

For you to understand this, read about this scam yourself: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fraudsters-exploit-australia-cybercrime-portal-072826206.html

What I am very surprised about is how the scammers were able to make fake reports on Australia’s ReportCyber platform and makes it look legitimate.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) revealed that scammers are filing false reports through ReportCyber, a platform designed for citizens to report cybercrimes.

Using stolen personal data, the fraudsters contact victims pretending to be officers from the AFP, claiming their information is linked to crypto-related investigations. The goal is to trick victims into transferring digital assets into fake “secure” wallets.

I do not know how this is done by the scammers.

You can read the news in full on https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fraudsters-exploit-australia-cybercrime-portal-072826206.html

People need to be very careful but people also need not to be stupid. Even if you are talking with a police officer or an officer in charge of crime, why would you send bitcoin or crypto to the officer if he told you to do so? That is stupidity, although not officers but scammers that are doing it.

If you are surprised by what the scammers did, I am not because I know that scammers can do anything to make sure they succeed when scamming people, there is nothing scammers can not claim to be just to make sure they scammed people, this is not the first time I have seen something like this happen, scammers are very smart and intelligent people, but they choose to use their experience to hurt people who have suffered to invest their money in an investment for the future.

We should always remember not to trust anyone, including the police. The police did not have any reason to know about your bitcoin because it is not their job, their job is to protect the people and save the lives of those who can defend themselves. I will not send or even show a police officer anything about my investment if they ask about it, I would rather follow them to the station and speak with their boss than fall victim to a scam.

[Upgrade00]

The key takeaway is how the legitimate service allows a breach on its database which compromises users and does not release a warning to those affected users to expect such attacks and steps to take to avoid becoming a victim.

It's also very unwary of the users to send their crypto to scammers. You should not trust the source even if it was originally from the website. Similar scams have happened many times in the banking sector which should be warning enough.

[sunsilk]

That's alarming when someone they have contacted is gullible enough. They're doing it with pressure and threat.

And that's why data that we're having in some platforms are very vital, if it's stolen and hacked. They can use it in these ways like these scammers do.

If no one is there to trust and protect the people, then these scammers are doing it badly and enticingly.

[Amphenomenon]

People need to be very careful but people also need not to be stupid. Even if you are talking with a police officer or an officer in charge of crime, why would you send bitcoin or crypto to the officer if he told you to do so? That is stupidity, although not officers but scammers that are doing it.

People can be very gullible and naïve sometimes and that's part of the reasons you see most of them getting scammed. Generally you'll notice that these scammers have two major methods they use to get a hold of their victims and both are either trying to make them trust them or make them afraid.

It's social engineering and sadly it was made to succeed in such events especially when victims are trying to find a Saviour. Here receiving information from said governmental bodies that are accurate and acting in urgency will affect many thinking since they were even using contact information close to that of the actual bodies.

Another day to remember the how our data online is our lives and what we can lose through it. We need to be careful.

[Wiwo]

This is popular here on my country,  we habe fake law enforcement agents that are busy defrauding unsuspecting victims,  but their most targets are the known scammers or fraudsters,  what they do is to set themselves up inviting fake EFCC to the victims and there by force their victims to make cryptocurrency transfers as a settlement to avoid jail.

But this is all fake.

Recently an EFCC officers was arrested for stealing $11900 that was seized from a fraudsters as exhibit,  so this types of scams are mostly done through the help of an insider.

[joniboini]

Reminds me of a scam that happened to my family in the past. Pretending to be a police officer or government agent, said our family is involved in a drug or accident and demands some funds to process their hospital room or something similar. Not surprisingly, it got recycled into another form of scam, considering how many grandparents fall for tricks like this. Looks like it isn't limited to older people now.

[rat03gopoh]

A credential might have leaked or maybe they found a bug in the ReportCyber platform to make fake requests in the system.

This is a completely impersonation trick; the scammer only needs the necessary personal data for ReportCyber ​​to issue a report reference number. No bugs or special IT skills are required, and trading stolen data on the dark web is no longer a secret. Next, the scammer pretends to be a police officer on duty. If the victim is asked to verify the report number and it turns out to be registered on the ReportCyber ​​platform, they will assume it's legit and be easily directed to the next step.

[348Judah]

We can see many routes of operandi scammers are using to make people their victims, yet they are not stopping these soon; they keep on impersonating, among other phishing attempts that are targeted at taking what belongs to others forcefully after using their vulnerability against them.

[Die_empty]

Reminds me of a scam that happened to my family in the past. Pretending to be a police officer or government agent, said our family is involved in a drug or accident and demands some funds to process their hospital room or something similar. Not surprisingly, it got recycled into another form of scam, considering how many grandparents fall for tricks like this. Looks like it isn't limited to older people now.

Your response also reminded me of a story that was posted on the forum where a man was told that his son was about to be sent to prison for a certain offence. The caller claimed that the victim’s son needed money to hire a lawyer to secure his bail. The man said the caller sounded exactly like his son.

Unfortunately for this man, he lost thousands of dollars.  Scammers are using different tactics to defraud people. We have to be sensitive and pay keen attention to details because they are acting very smart. Due to the low level technological knowledge of the elderly, they are one of the major targets of fraudsters

[TravelMug]

We can see many routes of operandi scammers are using to make people their victims, yet they are not stopping these soon; they keep on impersonating, among other phishing attempts that are targeted at taking what belongs to others forcefully after using their vulnerability against them.

And now it involves impersonating a police officer and that is really scary. I don't know if this is the first case that we have heard this, but if not then it's really getting worst. And it just shows that crypto enthusiast should really be silent and not to flaunt what they have in public.

Just go low profile and not tell anyone, don't trust is the key here.

[tech30338]

For you to understand this, read about this scam yourself: https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fraudsters-exploit-australia-cybercrime-portal-072826206.html

What I am very surprised about is how the scammers were able to make fake reports on Australia’s ReportCyber platform and makes it look legitimate.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) revealed that scammers are filing false reports through ReportCyber, a platform designed for citizens to report cybercrimes.

Using stolen personal data, the fraudsters contact victims pretending to be officers from the AFP, claiming their information is linked to crypto-related investigations. The goal is to trick victims into transferring digital assets into fake “secure” wallets.

I do not know how this is done by the scammers.

You can read the news in full on https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fraudsters-exploit-australia-cybercrime-portal-072826206.html

People need to be very careful but people also need not to be stupid. Even if you are talking with a police officer or an officer in charge of crime, why would you send bitcoin or crypto to the officer if he told you to do so? That is stupidity, although not officers but scammers that are doing it.

As a user or a person who have money on banks, or a person with an account in an exchange, if someone called you that your account or username and password are in a data breach, what you should do?
Drop the call, access your account, change your username and password, never give any information via call to anyone, even if they say they are working in a B company, change your password, of course you should change password, every few months or add additional security in your account like email or authenticator, and lastly if you are entertaining the caller, if they are asking something like transferring, remember that the real company will not let you do this if they are legitimate.
They should be more strick on how people access the portal maybe like authentication or check if the one accessing is the person or impersonating.

[sokani]

I do not know how this is done by the scammers.

You can read the news in full on https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fraudsters-exploit-australia-cybercrime-portal-072826206.html

People need to be very careful but people also need not to be stupid. Even if you are talking with a police officer or an officer in charge of crime, why would you send bitcoin or crypto to the officer if he told you to do so? That is stupidity, although not officers but scammers that are doing it.

I think the Australian Police CyberReport portal suffered a data breach, and that's how the scammers got hold of victims' personal information, which they used to contact and scam them.

I know, we've got to an era where you do not necessarily need to be physically present at a police station to help them with their investigation, but why would someone transfer funds to a random person claiming to be a police officer in the first place? I would never do that, even if it's $5. This had 'scam' written all over it and should have been smelt from a thousand miles.

[Felicity_Tide]

~snip

People need to be very careful but people also need not to be stupid. Even if you are talking with a police officer or an officer in charge of crime, why would you send bitcoin or crypto to the officer if he told you to do so? That is stupidity, although not officers but scammers that are doing it.

i think a common problem with so many people is that they are quick to questioning things that don't require questions, and they don't hesitate to accept things that are worth questioning. A lot of people use their skeptical instincts at the very wrong time. You see, the reason why most people tend to fall for these scams isn't because the trick worked entirely on them, but it is because they don't understand the power/purpose of self custody. They are holding their assets, but are still living like those using banks/Centralized platforms. So you're right, being careful is not enough, because stupidity places a big role in some of these cases.