Elon Musk isn’t giving you crypto – it’s a scam
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In the latest example of Elon Musk’s identity (opens in new tab) Abused in cryptocurrency scam, a threat actor is targeting the eccentric billionaire’s latest Twitter followers, security experts have warned.
As reported by Beeping computer, a scammer created an unnamed Twitter account and put the company logo in front of the profile picture to create a false sense of legitimacy. They then started monitoring Elon Musk’s Twitter account for new followers and adding them to a list called “Deal of the Year”.
Opening the list (which is public and visible to all) shows the victims a fake Elon Musk tweet inviting his new followers to a cryptocurrency giveaway.
False giveaway
“I have decided to randomly choose 1,000 new followers to participate in the biggest crypto giveaway,” the tweet says, and if nothing else, the obvious grammar mistakes should be enough as a red flag.
The tweet also shares a link – freedomgiveaway.net, where victims must complete a short quiz to participate in the “giveaway”. The quiz is largely common knowledge, but it doesn’t really matter if you get the correct answer or not.
Once you’re done, the site will ask you for your cryptocurrency address and promise to send 5,000 BTC to the lucky winners (around $84 million at the time of writing). But before they can be credited with the fancy crypto, they must first deposit a small amount to the address of “Elon” – somewhere between 0.02 and 1 BTC.
The website also lists numerous fake reviews praising the campaign, to make it more credible and to try and mislead as many gullible investors as possible.
At the address where the victims have to deposit money this link (opens in new tab), and luckily it seems that Elon Musk’s followers are not so naive – the wallet is empty and has seen zero interactions so far. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Through: Beeping computer (opens in new tab)