Fake federal employees target crypto investors: CISA warns
The Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a warning on June 12 about impersonation scams, often using “names and titles of government employees.”
The CISA alert explained that employees never ask for a cash line, “cash, cryptocurrency, or use of gift cards.”
“If you are the target of a scammer pretending to be a CISA employee, do not pay the caller; Note the phone number that is calling you; Hang up immediately. [and] Verify the contact by calling CISA.
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Crypto scams are on the rise.
In response to questions from Cointelegraph, Phil Larratt, director of research at Chinalysis, said fraud “remains a major concern.” [crypto] Ecosystem as a Whole”
According to Larat, scams are again “one of the biggest drivers of kriptovalyutnyh crime, bringing in at least $4.6 billion in revenue by 2023.”
“Impersonation scams in particular had the fourth worst impact on victims in 2023 with an average payout of $948, as we found in our Chainalysis 2024 Crypto Crime Report.”
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prevention and reduction
On the topic of CIA-recommended actions and prevention, Larratt said the first line of defense against large-scale fraud comes from public education and prevention efforts.
“This is critical because once crypto-assets are transferred to a third party, the asset cannot be controlled without the private keys of the third-party currency.”
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Phishing scams and crypto mining
Among the fake federal employee impersonation scams, Larat provides additional information on two of the most popular scams: phishing and crypto mining authorizations.
“Phishing scammers have historically targeted a wide range of sites by promoting fake crypto applications.”
This tactic is used by romance scammers, also known as pork scammers, which results in huge losses, he said.
“[Crypto drainer operators] They often advertise their fake Web3 pages on Discord communities and fake social media accounts. […] It allows the operator to control the funds in the wallet by tricking victims into connecting their crypto wallets to a mining machine and using an approved phishing technique to trick victims into approving transaction proposals.
Chinalysis' director of investigations concluded by explaining that the implementation of preventive security measures such as “Web3 security extensions” are “increasingly important for Web3 projects and users” to combat these fraud methods.
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