The latest wave of this scam has resulted in over half a million dollars being stolen from various users. The nature of the scam is quite insidious, since it basically tells users that if they give the scammer a little bit of money they would end up getting ten times that money thanks to the investing strategies being put in place. Now, Elon Musk is one of the most famous people in the world. He is known for his extravagant wealth, and using his name makes it so that people might just be a little more inclined towards giving their money away since they would assume that someone like Musk is going to be responsible with it.
Another verified account is being used to spread Musk themed scam: https://t.co/WLt3RaYvuI
— MalwareHunterTeam (@malwrhunterteam) January 16, 2021
Right now there is no legit tweet can be found from that account, only the scams...
The "Global News" name and profile image was seen being used here too: https://t.co/o7yyH202Da pic.twitter.com/3XLOBVSP8H
Anyway seriously, Twitter should have some policy for verified accounts like X time inactivity = account locked, only can login after verifying that who tries to login is the real owner & not some random skids.
— MalwareHunterTeam (@malwrhunterteam) January 16, 2021
5 years, like in this case, should be much more than enough for that. https://t.co/sIhqJ5fCP7
Another verified account is being used to spread Musk themed scam: https://t.co/2oy2pgEo4g
— MalwareHunterTeam (@malwrhunterteam) January 15, 2021
Last legit activity from the account was in 2018... pic.twitter.com/Ftf22bqNql
The only problem is that Musk has nothing to do with this scam, it’s only his name that’s being used for this sort of thing and the fact that verified accounts have been hacked is leading to a lot more losses this time around. The fact that this scam still manages to target so many victims is a sign that more people need to be educated about potential scams online to prevent them from having too much of an impact.
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