Cryptocurrency scammers force victims to record videos to attract new victims

Hackers force Instagram users to shoot and publish videos to attract new victims (similar to messages from terrorist hostages). In the videos, Instagrammers instruct their subscribers on how to participate in fraudulent cryptocurrency schemes.

The Vice Motherboard reports on a massive wave of such attacks. For the first time, the publication reported about such a fraud last week, when the criminal used blackmail to force the victim to make a video in which she promised subscribers that they would return and increase their funds if they sent bitcoins to the attacker. Moreover, after recording the video, the attacker still hacked the victim’s Instagram account, sent the video to her friends and tried to deceive other users.

After the publication of this story, other Instagram users contacted the journalists, claiming that they, too, had been hacked and forced to shoot similar videos.

Of course, all information that Ashley mentioned in the video is a fraud. This scam began with the fact that Zoller saw in the story a message supposedly of her best friend about making money with bitcoins. Zoller followed the link sent from her friend’s account (the phishing page mimicked a real Instagram page), and the hacker took over her account.

Initially, the attacker demanded that Zoller send an explicit video to restore access to the account. When the girl flatly refused, the attacker told her to shoot a video advertising cryptocurrency fraud. When his demand was met, the hacker did not return the victim’s account, but instead posted a video of Zoller in the story.

The hacker also managed to hack the victim’s Venmo, email and banking applications, send himself a $ 500 payment to Venmo, marked as “Investment Fee”, and buy $ 1,000 worth of bitcoins with her funds. Journalists say that the editorial office has all the screenshots confirming this.

Another victim of such a fraudulent scheme is Tim Nugent, who also provided the Vice Motherboard a video that he was forced to shoot by order of the hackers.

The victim used his Instagram account to promote his Tapes from the Crypt business, which sells horror items through Etsy. Now Nugent complains that the scammer has already compromised two of his clients and subscribers, people do not understand what is happening, and his reputation is practically destroyed.

After the Vice Motherboard was published, other journalists also discovered similar cases of fraud. For example, Substack The Red Tape Chronicles spoke to the victim, who was also forced to make a similar video. The victim first paid $ 1,000 to an old friend who allegedly needed money for a kidney transplant, and then the hackers stole nearly $ 3,000 from her.

Developers of Instagram told reporters that they recommend account owners to use strong passwords (combinations of letters and special characters, at least six characters long), and also include two-factor authentication.

Let me remind you that we wrote that Scammers Attack Potential Crypto Investors and Miners.