Source: Australian federal police“The messages allegedly contained fake verification codes and were often ‘spoofed,' meaning they appeared in a legitimate existing message thread from the well-known cryptocurrency exchange,” the AFP said.“A support phone number was also sent, but when the targets called it, they were instructed to protect their accounts by transferring their cryptocurrency to a ‘trust wallet,' which was controlled by the scammer and allowed the assets to be stolen.”Online text messaging services allow messages to be sent from a Sender ID, such as a company name, rather than a phone number and can be exploited to spoof text messages, according to a March 1, 2019 report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Australian federal police have alerted over 130 people of a new text message scam aimed at crypto users that copies the same “sender ID” as legitimate crypto exchanges such as Binance. The impersonation scam involves the fraudsters sending out messages through text and encrypted messaging platforms by impersonating a Binance representative, telling users of a crypto account breach and instructing them to set up a new wallet, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said in a March 21 statement.
Once a phone receives the sham communication, it’s reportedly grouped based on the Sender ID, appearing in the same thread as other messages with the same ID. The AFP says it conducted an email and text blitz to warn the 130 people they identified who might have been exposed to this scam. AFP Commander Cybercrime Operations Graeme Marshall said once the funds are transferred to the thief’s wallet, they are quickly transferred through a network of wallets, making seizure or recovery difficult.
or
Share This Story
Article Details
Author / Journalist: Cointelegraph by Stephen Katte
The story "SMS scammers posing as Binance have an even trickier way to fool victims" has 629 words across 18 sentences, which will take approximately 3 - 6 minutes for the average person to read.
Which news outlet covered this story?
The story "SMS scammers posing as Binance have an even trickier way to fool victims" was covered 1 days ago by Coin Telegraph, a news publisher based in United States.
How trustworthy is 'Coin Telegraph' news outlet?
Coin Telegraph is a fully independent (privately-owned) news outlet established in 2013 that covers mostly crypto news.
The outlet is headquartered in United States and publishes an average of 16 news stories per day.
It's most recent story was published 11 hours ago.
What do people currently think of this news story?
The sentiment for this story is currently Negative, indicating that people regard this as "bad news".
How do I report this news for inaccuracy?
You can report an inaccurate news publication to us via our contact page. Please also include the news #ID number and the URL to this story.
