Page 122 - Cyber Defense Magazine for August 2020

• Falling for scams by email, imposter websites, and apps (or Twitter…)
• Acquiring malware by visiting scam websites and opening files in your email from untrustworthy
sources. Then, this malware gains access to your web-based wallet and is extremely difficult to
remove. Some malware programs even scan your clipboard and text files to replace your
cryptocurrency address with the address of the scammer. Other malware installs a miner to use
your computer as a free mining resource.

More skillful scammers have developed a roundabout way of taking your money, mainly by exploiting
human nature.

• As Bitcoin entered the mainstream news cycle and soared in value, people were starting to feel
left out of the game. Trying to catch up with lesser, cheaper altcoins, they fell into the embrace of
ICO scammers. In 2017, fake Initial Coin Offering (ICOs) was a huge problem, with at least 80%
of ICOs uncovered as scams.
• Pumping and dumping. Relying on the same sentiment as with ICO scams, pump and dump
scammers have adopted a strategy of picking an altcoin low in market cap, buying it in bulk to
spike its price, then selling it after other people bought it for an even higher price.
• Closely related to the aforementioned Twitter hacking, you will also find celebrity impersonation
scams. All of those hacked accounts of famous people were used as cryptocurrency giveaway
scams. Usually, they promise to send you more than what you sent them, as a part of some kind
of charity drive.

As you can see, you can have fool-proof security in the form of blockchain and still be duped if you lack
knowledge and discipline to resist baits.

User-Education Must Come First

Blockchain may be the revolutionary bulwark against hard hacks we were all waiting for, but soft hacks
will continue to plague cryptocurrency users. Even outside of hacks and scams, cryptocurrency, with
Bitcoin leading the charge, has become the perfect means of laundering money. Moreover, money-
laundering goes hand-in-hand with blackmail and ransom.
Such is the flexibility of digital technology that cybercriminals don’t even have to hack anything at all.
They can simply threaten to hack or insinuate to have some dirt on someone by using vague language,
and the victim would then just have to send a certain cryptocurrency sum to their address. No physical
contact, and no risk.

At least, some careless cybercriminals would assume so.

Cyber Defense eMagazine – August 2020 Edition 122
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