Scammers Make Over $5,000 in Cryptocurrency Overnight by Pretending to Be Celebrities

Cybercriminals managed to earn more than $5,000 in Ethereum cryptocurrency overnight by creating fake celebrity profiles on Twitter and sending out messages inviting users to participate in so-called “giveaways.” This was reported by Bleeping Computer.

The scammers tricked users into sending them small amounts of cryptocurrency, promising to send back ten times the amount. All the messages followed the same template, differing only in the specified amounts and wallet addresses.

One such message read: “We are donating 200 Ethereum to the ETH community! The first 50 transactions of 0.2 ETH sent to the address below will receive 2.0 ETH back to the sender’s address.”

The scammers created fake profiles for numerous celebrities, including businessman Elon Musk, antivirus software founder John McAfee, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, entrepreneur Warren Buffett, the exchanges Coinbase and CoinMarketCap, as well as the services OmiseGo and Nano Cryptocurrency.

According to the report, the scammers managed to collect a total of more than 7.69 units of Ethereum, worth about $6,400 at the time of writing.

The fraudulent campaign has been ongoing for almost two weeks, but the largest amount of funds was transferred during the night of February 6 to 7, 2018. Most of the money was sent to wallets supposedly belonging to John McAfee, Vitalik Buterin, and Elon Musk. The interest in the fake Musk profile is explained by the successful launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket by his company SpaceX on February 6, 2018.