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Bogus Twitter account pushing crypto scam with Musk’s name

Elon Musk’s Twitter followers have become the target of a new cryptocurrency scam, having been added to a Deal of the Year list on Twitter that lures them into depositing small crypto amounts into the attackers’ wallet in exchange for the false promise of receiving up to 5000 Bitcoin.

The goal of the fraudsters is, of course, to trick users into parting with their cryptocurrency by clicking a link to a so-called freedom giveaway. Those who click the link will be taken to a website that will greet them with a quiz about Musk’s businesses. Following completion of the quiz, users are encouraged to deposit a small amount starting at 0.02 BTC in order to receive 5,000 BTC.

To appear more credible, the website is flooded with fake comments praising Musk and the giveaway. The banner appears to be a tweet from Elon Musk’s official account promising free cryptocurrency to “1000 new followers” chosen at random. However, the real user name behind the scam account, ‘@CroweYoshiko,’ is placed right beneath the list title, ‘Deal of the Year,’ and its profile pic (Twitter logo) lends some credibility to it.

The advertised URL, freedomgiveaway.net, is associated with the Bitcoin address: bc1qtq6sk3kfpdadgdwthk6weaa9q0ra65y6snqyy9.

The sources for this piece include an article in Bleepingcomputer.

IT World Canada Staff
IT World Canada Staffhttp://www.itworldcanada.com/
The online resource for Canadian Information Technology professionals.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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