Scammers Disguise as Ukrainians to Steal BTC
2 min readThe conflict between Russia and Ukraine mobilized not only politicians and heads of state, but a large part of the world’s population and the cryptocurrency community that was sensitized by the war.
Scammers are looking for cash
Thousands of donations in BTC and cryptocurrencies were sent to a number of organizations seeking to help Ukraine. However, several donations were also made to the Russians in support of the conflict.
As people die from the bombings, scammers are also emerging looking to cash in on the chaos. They are using social media to impersonate Ukrainian citizens and claiming that they would be suffering from the war and thus thrill people to steal their cryptocurrencies.
According to cybersecurity firm Avast, a number of fake donation posts are being spread on social media, including TikTok and Twitter. Also according to the company, scammers are also promoting phishing attacks. That way, instead of defrauding donations, they steal all user funds.
As Avast highlighted, the posts contain a link to the donation. Thus, by clicking on the malicious link with the good intention of donating BTC to Ukrainians, the user provides his data. With this, it gives control of your cryptocurrency wallet to criminals.
Fake BTC donation requests often use specific language and range from heartbreaking to threatening. Among the phrases to take into account when detecting a scam are the following: “help, I’m stuck here”, “I need to bury my loved one”, among others.
To avoid falling for these scams, the Avast team recommends avoiding sending money directly to unknown people. After all, it is practically impossible to know if you are a needy person or a scammer.
“If you want to help the people of Ukraine, we recommend that you only donate through official and trusted organizations or donate directly on their website and not through links shared on social media.”
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