The recent research by the company Group-IB specializing in cybersecurity revealed that the number of scammers preying on people who want to invest in crypto had tripled just during the last six months. Criminals are using all sorts of tricks to convince people to give away money. Even law enforcement officers are not guaranteed to avoid such scams stories like this show that scammers can target even people who are acutely aware of online crime rates.
It is cheaper than ever to become a scam artist
Contemporary technology erases many obstacles that scammers faced just a decade ago. Today, deep fake videos, fake voicing, and cheap web design solutions allow anyone to appear as a legitimate “marketer” with a huge reach provided by social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Just this year, FTC reported that over $770 million is lost to various social media scams including 32% of all cases related to the crypto industry in one way or another.
Websites set up by scammers are seen by at least 15 thousand unique visitors on average with some landing pages generating thousands of conversions leading to unprecedented numbers of cases where people lose money to scams. The Group-IB research indicates that about 30 million users worldwide are targeted by scammers with the vast majority represented by English and Spanish speakers.
Since these scammers use advanced technology to trick their victims and have access to widely available tools that allow them to appear legitimate, avoiding these scams completely is a challenge. Distinguishing a reliable platform from something that will steal your money, personal information, or assets is possible but requires a lot of research — something that many contemporary internet users do not want to do.
Please follow basic safety rules
The crypto industry is not the only one seeing such drastic surges in the number of scam artists. It is important to remember that you should not use websites that do not have good user reviews and avoid unknown web addresses if possible. Do not share your personal information and never trust people who contact you on social media!