In a word: It’s not just hackers who are targeting cryptocurrency fans; scammers are also a common threat to those who like to invest in digital currency. A new phishing campaign is using Amazon’s name and false reporting to try to trick people into handing over cash or crypto for a token that doesn’t exist.
Researchers from Akamai Technologies (Going through ZDNet) spotlighted the campaign. It starts with social media posts aimed at groups interested in all things crypto. Clicking on one of the links in the posts takes you to a fake website called “CNBC Decoded” which displays an article claiming that the Amazon Token presale is coming.
The fake site is only visible for 30 seconds, long enough for someone to browse it without reporting it as fake, before it is redirected to the Amazon Token Project website, which, of course, is not is not a real thing.
Interested buyers can create an account on the fully functional “Amazon Token” page. It requires email confirmation, which makes the site more authentic, and comes with a fake progress bar suggesting the tokens are about to sell out, triggering a victim’s FOMO and urging them to hand over their payment details. There is even a friend and family referral program to attract more people.
The site uses a captcha-style challenge to filter robots and web crawlers looking for malicious content while adding to its apparent legitimacy.
Akamai reports that 98% of people who visited the fake crypto landing page were mobile users, most of whom were from North and South America and Asia. The company reported its findings to Amazon, which never announced plans for its own digital coin.
In July last year, a job posting from Amazon suggested the tech giant would soon start accepting crypto as payment for goods, but the company quickly denied that would be the case.
