An old MEV bot scam rides the AI hype to return with a new name: SlowMist
A growing number of users are falling victim to an old trading bot scam that has been redesigned to take advantage of the hype around artificial intelligence, according to blockchain security firm SlowMist.
In an Oct. 13 Medium post, Slow Wife said cybercriminals have adapted to trending topics by using OpenAI's ChatGPT in the name of their scam bots to take advantage of the current AI hype.
Fake bots that used to be sold as “Uniswap Arbitrage MEV Bot” have been rebranded as “ChatGPT Arbitrage MEV Bot”.
“They slapped the ChatGPT tag on their scam to attract attention and appear more credible,” the organization wrote.
“The fraudsters claim to have used ChatGPT to create bot code, which helps ease users' suspicions about any malicious intent in the code,” he added.
SlowMist says cybercriminals have rebranded an old scam as the ChatGPT Arbitrage MEV Bot to take advantage of the hype around AI. Source: SlowMist
According to SlowMist, fraudsters are tricking users by promising a trading bot that can help them make huge profits by tracking new tokens and high prices on Ethereum.
Victims are encouraged to create a MetaMask wallet and click on a spoofed link on Remix on the open source platform. Once the code is copied and the bot is deployed, users are prompted to provide funds to “activate” the smart contract.
“The more ETH they accumulate, the greater their profits are supposed to be. But when the user clicks ‘Start,' the deposited ETH is lost – directly into the fraudulent wallet via a backdoor stored in the smart contract,” SlowMist wrote.
“The funds of the expenses are transferred directly to exchanges or moved to temporary storage addresses,” the organization said.
Victims are encouraged to create a MetaMask wallet and click on a fake Remix link as part of the scam. Source: SlowMist
SlowMist claims to have discovered three fraudulent addresses using these methods to rip off unsuspecting users.
Since August, one person has stolen 30 Ether (ETH) worth more than $78,000 from more than 100 victims. Another 20 ethers worth more than $52,000 were stolen from 93 victims
SlowMist says the fraudsters use a “broad-net approach” — stealing small amounts from many victims — who often don't bother trying to recover the money because the effort to do so is greater than the amount stolen.
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“Because individual losses are relatively small, many victims do not have the time or resources to seek justice,” Slowmist wrote.
“This allows the fraudsters to continue operating, often rebranding the scam,” he said.
According to a blockchain security firm, the Internet, especially YouTube, has many videos promoting this type of scam.
He warned that red flags that the video might be promoting fraud could include the video and audio being out of sync or showing recycled footage from another source.
An unusually high number of comments of praise and thanks, with later updates calling the scheme a scam, could also be red flags, he said.
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