Carding
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Investment fraud is gaining momentum, using social networks as a distribution channel.
Researchers at Group-IB have identified a large-scale investment fraud campaign that uses social media ads to attract uninformed victims.
According to the company, experts found almost 900 fraudulent pages, 60% of which are aimed at users from the Middle East and Africa. Only from March to June 2023, the damage from this campaign amounted to about 280 thousand dollars.
Victims get to fraudulent investment sites by clicking on Facebook ads. Most of these sites pose as legitimate financial companies and brands from the transportation, stock trading, and oil and gas industries.
In some ads, scammers promise their potential victims to earn millions with an investment of just $ 200. This, of course, attracts many users who want to get rich easily and quickly.
The scammers ask for the victim's name, email, and phone number, and then send them a username, password, and instructions to log in to their supposedly new investment account. If the victim does not make a deposit, "managers" call her, insisting on making a deposit. They also require the would-be investor to provide their bank details, address, and passport. Overall, nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to investment and finance.
However, after the transfer of funds, communication with intruders abruptly breaks off, and when trying to return money, the victim is blocked in all communication channels, leaving him with a nose.
This is a fairly typical fraud scheme, where hackers trick their victims into investing real money in something, and then disappear without a trace along with them.
"This particular scam is notable because cybercriminals use multiple communication channels, such as email and direct phone calls, as part of their social engineering efforts," explained Sharef Hlal, head of digital risk protection at Group — IB.
The expert urges to be careful and not transfer personal data or money without confidence in the recipient's reliability. You need to carefully check companies before investing funds and do not believe tempting offers on social networks.
Fraudsters are constantly improving their methods and using new communication channels. In addition to social networks, they are active via instant messengers and by phone. The success of their attacks largely depends on the ignorance of users, so the best protection will be self-education in the field of information security.
Researchers at Group-IB have identified a large-scale investment fraud campaign that uses social media ads to attract uninformed victims.
According to the company, experts found almost 900 fraudulent pages, 60% of which are aimed at users from the Middle East and Africa. Only from March to June 2023, the damage from this campaign amounted to about 280 thousand dollars.
Victims get to fraudulent investment sites by clicking on Facebook ads. Most of these sites pose as legitimate financial companies and brands from the transportation, stock trading, and oil and gas industries.
In some ads, scammers promise their potential victims to earn millions with an investment of just $ 200. This, of course, attracts many users who want to get rich easily and quickly.
The scammers ask for the victim's name, email, and phone number, and then send them a username, password, and instructions to log in to their supposedly new investment account. If the victim does not make a deposit, "managers" call her, insisting on making a deposit. They also require the would-be investor to provide their bank details, address, and passport. Overall, nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to investment and finance.
However, after the transfer of funds, communication with intruders abruptly breaks off, and when trying to return money, the victim is blocked in all communication channels, leaving him with a nose.
This is a fairly typical fraud scheme, where hackers trick their victims into investing real money in something, and then disappear without a trace along with them.
"This particular scam is notable because cybercriminals use multiple communication channels, such as email and direct phone calls, as part of their social engineering efforts," explained Sharef Hlal, head of digital risk protection at Group — IB.
The expert urges to be careful and not transfer personal data or money without confidence in the recipient's reliability. You need to carefully check companies before investing funds and do not believe tempting offers on social networks.
Fraudsters are constantly improving their methods and using new communication channels. In addition to social networks, they are active via instant messengers and by phone. The success of their attacks largely depends on the ignorance of users, so the best protection will be self-education in the field of information security.
