From February 16 to February 18, Group-IB specialists identified 36 fraudulent YouTube broadcasts dedicated to cryptocurrencies investments that have brought more than $1.6 million to the scammers.
The attackers allegedly edited videos from old speeches by famous representatives of the cryptocurrency community and entrepreneurs. Vitalik Buterin, Elon Musk, Michael Saylor and Changpeng Zhao, as well as other prominent names, were used more often than others.
The fake stream with Buterin attracted more than 165,000 viewers. On average, the audience of one such stream is from 3,000 to 18,000 people. During the broadcast, users were offered to transfer cryptocurrencies to a wallet and allegedly receive them back in double volume.
In total, deceived viewers made 281 transactions worth more than $1.68 million. Ethereum turned out to be the most popular among scammers with $933,963.
For an “extra bonus,” the attackers offered investors to provide the seed phrase of their crypto wallet. If the victim agreed, the scammers withdrew all the funds on it.
