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This article is from Trend Micro.
Impersonating Elon Musk is nothing new to scammers. They regularly use his name to trick people into parting with their hard-earned money — or as in these most recent cases, their hard-earned crypto.
Keep on reading to learn about two hot Elon Musk-related crypto scams that you need to be aware of!
Launched in July 2021, YouTube Shorts is YouTube’s short-form video sharing platform. Lately, scammers have been abusing the platform by advertising fake crypto websites and pretending that they are endorsed by Elon Musk.
Scammers are flooding YouTube Shorts with Elon Musk-related scams
The scam videos contain shots of Elon Musk talking at various unrelated conferences alongside links to scam websites (blurred in the images above). Elon Musk does not endorse any of these websites in any way, the scammers are just hoping to deceive would-be victims.
After visiting any of the malicious links in the videos, potential victims are taken to one of two crypto scam websites:
BitVex[.]org is a fake crypto investment platform claiming to use artificial intelligence to help people make prudent investment decisions. While this sounds superb, unfortunately, the site is 100% a scam!
ElonMusk2022[.]net is a fake crypto giveaway website. Essentially, the website encourages people to send their cryptocurrency to either a Bitcoin or Ethereum wallet, with the promise that what they send, plus extra, will be returned to them in a sort of “giveaway” scheme.
Of course, this site is a complete scam and anyone who sends the scammers their crypto will never see it again, never mind any extra!
The scammers have also been looking to attract victims to their scam websites through text messages. Here are two examples of the scam text messages they’ve been sending out:
It is similar to ElonMusk2022[.]net in advertised (but untrue) functionality, except that it features the image of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin instead.
Although the site looks quite professional and it may be tempting to instantly increase the amount of crypto you own, stay well away because it’s yet another scam!
Trend Micro Check is a completely free app and browser extension for detecting scams, phishing attacks, malware, and dangerous links. Available for Android, iOS, Safari, Google Chrome, and Microsoft Edge. Click the button below to download for FREE!
