As thousands of civilians die amid the deadly Israel-Hamas war, scammers are capitalizing on the horrific events to collect donations by pretending to be legitimate charities. BleepingComputer has come across several posts on X, Telegram and Instagram where scammers list dubious cryptocurrency wallet addresses and lure unsuspecting victims into sending them funds. Several accounts on social platforms including X, Telegram, and Instagram are enticing people to make humanitarian donations to support the victims of the ongoing Middle East crisis. These accounts, primarily listing crypto wallet addresses, have dubious origins, are not endorsed by an official charity, and are very likely to be scams. Similar to the previous crypto donation scams we have reported on before, during the Russo-Ukrainian war and following the earthquakes in Turkey, these accounts evoke emotions of viewers by posting gory pictures of wounded soldiers, women, and children. Xyz associated with the account was registered Oct 15th and is not endorsed by any established charitable organizations, contrary to its claim of being "An Islamic Relief Initiative" listed on the page's footer. The website's copy has been lifted from the Islamic Relief's official website. The operators behind this account have listed their Ethereum, Bitcoin, and USDT addresses on its website and social media accounts [1, 2] where funds should be sent. BleepingComputer tracked the crypto addresses' transaction history and observed no donations have been sent yet to any of these addresses. On the flip side, suspicious accounts claiming to support Israel and Israeli victims are also making rounds. BleepingComputer came across a 'Donate for Israel' account on X [1, 2, 3]. The associated crypto wallet address once again shows zero transactions and sparse data associated with the X account casts doubts on its authenticity. One must note that none of the example accounts shown here are verified for authenticity, and as such users should exercise caution when approaching such claims online. Researchers at the security giant report seeing more than 500 scam emails, along with fraudulent websites designed to capitalize on people's willingness to aid those impacted. The websites seen by Kaspersky researchers support easy money transfer options and accept a wide range of crypto: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, and Litecoin. While Kaspersky did not name the specific website in question, BleepingComputer was able to trace it to an egypthelp. Online domain, with the website titled, 'Help Palestine Society. "In these emails, scammers try to create multiple text variations to evade spam filters," Andrey Kovtun, a security expert at Kaspersky told BleepingComputer. Kaspersky researchers have warned that such scam pages can swiftly multiply simply by modifying their design and targeting specific groups of people. In a succinct blog post, Larissa Bungo, a Senior Attorney at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission shared several actionable tips that can prevent you from falling for scams. TikTok flooded by 'Elon Musk' cryptocurrency giveaway scams.
This Cyber News was published on www.bleepingcomputer.com. Publication date: Thu, 30 Nov 2023 23:19:27 +0000