on the crypto
Cryptocurrency crimes have experienced their biggest boom in the past year, at the same time that cryptocurrency has become popular. According to Chainalysis, in 2021, these illicit activities reached an all-time high reaching 14 billion dollars. This situation begs the question: Are cryptocurrency trading platforms safe?
As cryptocurrencies have spread to all of the company's investment portfolios, so have the resulting crimes. These cyber criminals have continually come up with new ways to find the security breach of trading platforms and crypto wallets.
Specifically, one of the entities that is attracting more fraud is Coinbase, the largest in the United States. This platform is seeing a new bot scam.
Victims receive a call from the "Coinbase anti-fraud service"
To carry out this scam, cybercriminals use automated bots, a technology that mimics any recorded message from a company.
The scammers call the victim, impersonating Coinbase's anti-fraud service, as reported by CNBC. When the customer of the platform answers the call, the robotic voice typical of automated messages replies: “Hello, welcome to the Coinbase security prevention line. We have detected unauthorized activity due to a failed login attempt on your account, ”they say on the other side of the phone.
Cybercriminals warn the victim that someone is trying to access their virtual wallet, and urge them to verify their movement: "If it is not you, press '1', to complete the precautions to recover your account".
Once the account owner presses the "1" button, the call switches to a real "assistant". This person, posing as a Coinbase employee, asks the victim to give up their password and give up control of their device so that they can solve the problem.
Once the victim has provided this information and control of the computer, tablet or smartphone, the cybercriminal can act as they please within their Coinbase account.
Through this scam, Dr. Anders Apgar, a client of the platform, lost nearly $ 70.000, as reported by CNBC.
For his part, David Silver, another Coinbase client, was luckier than Apgar, as he is a lawyer specializing in financial fraud and cryptocurrency cases. When the lawyer got the call, he followed the cybercriminals game to figure out the fraud process, only he hung up when they urged him to give up control of his device.
Bots are easily purchased on Telegram
This fraud is related to the double authentication security system. A process that the company is already accustomed to, since it lives with it day by day, when it has to carry out any procedure with a bank electronically.
For this reason they need both the password and the device control, in order to respond to the authentication message. Cybercriminals use bots to inspire trust in the victim, using the person's fear and doubt to make them act quickly and without thinking.
The problem becomes more serious when you consider that these bots can be easily purchased on Telegram. Here, scammers can purchase a monthly subscription for as little as $ 100 or an infinite bot package for $ 4.000.
Complaints against Coinbase are growing
Dr. Apgar is just one of many Coinbase-related victims. He kept $ 106.000 on the platform, mostly in bitcoin. After the call of these cybercriminals, he only saved $ 31.000.
According to US media, complaints about the Coinbase service have spread. A large part of the platform's customers witnessed how cybercriminals emptied their virtual wallets.
However, when they approached the company, they were unable to get help. It should be noted that Coinbase has implemented a phone support line to help customers, but it hasn't helped reduce fraud either.
