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Security
attackers attacks CryptoLabs Cyber Fraud Data Data Safety data security hack Hackers Investors Safety Scam Scammers Security

CryptosLabs Scam Ring Preys on French-Speaking Investors, Amasses €480 Million

 

A group of cybersecurity researchers has uncovered the inner workings of a fraudulent organization known as CryptosLabs. This scam ring has allegedly generated illegal profits amounting to €480 million by specifically targeting individuals who speak French in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg since April 2018.

According to a comprehensive report by Group-IB, the scam ring's modus operandi revolves around elaborate investment schemes. They impersonate 40 prominent banks, financial technology companies, asset management firms, and cryptocurrency platforms. The scam infrastructure they have established includes over 350 domains hosted on more than 80 servers.

Group-IB, headquartered in Singapore, describes CryptosLabs as an organized criminal network with a hierarchical structure. The group comprises kingpins, sales agents, developers, and call center operators. These individuals are recruited to lure potential victims by promising high returns on their investments.

"CryptoLabs made their scam schemes more convincing through region-focused tactics, such as hiring French-speaking callers as 'managers' and creating fake landing pages, social media ads, documents, and investment platforms in the French language," Anton Ushakov, deputy head of Group-IB's high-tech crime investigation department in Amsterdam, stated.

"They even impersonated French-dominant businesses to resonate with their target audience better and be successful in exploiting them."

The scam begins by enticing targets through advertisements on social media, search engines, and online investment forums. The scammers masquerade as the "investment division" of the impersonated organization and present attractive investment plans, aiming to obtain the victims' contact details.

Once engaged, the victims are contacted by call center operators who provide them with additional information about the fraudulent platform and the credentials needed for trading. After logging into the platform, victims are encouraged to deposit funds into a virtual balance. They are then shown fabricated performance charts, enticing them to invest more in pursuit of greater profits. However, victims eventually realize they cannot withdraw any funds, even if they pay the requested "release fees."

"After logging in, the victims deposit funds on a virtual balance," Ushakov said. "They are then shown fictitious performance charts that trigger them to invest more for better profits until they realize they cannot withdraw any funds even when paying the 'release fees.'"

Initially, the victims are required to deposit around €200-300. However, the scam is designed to manipulate victims into depositing larger sums by presenting them with false evidence of successful investments.

Group-IB initially uncovered this large-scale scam-as-a-service operation in December 2022. Their investigation traced the group's activities back to 2015 when they were experimenting with various landing pages. CryptosLabs' involvement in investment scams became more prominent in June 2018 after a preparatory period of two months.

A key aspect of the fraudulent campaign is the utilization of a customized scam kit. This kit enables the threat actors to execute, manage, and expand their activities across different stages of the scam, ranging from deceptive social media advertisements to website templates used to facilitate the fraud.

The scam kit also includes auxiliary tools for creating landing pages, a customer relationship management (CRM) service that allows the addition of new managers to each domain, a leads control panel used by scammers to onboard new customers to the trading platform, and a real-time VoIP utility for communicating with victims.

"Analyzing CryptosLabs, it is evident that the threat group has given its activities a well-established structure in terms of operations and headcount, and is likely to expand the scope and scale of its illicit business in the coming years," Ushakov said.
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User Privacy
Access Tokens Backdoor Check Point Crypto Crypto Exchange Cyber Crime Investors User Privacy

Dingo Token Charging 99% Fee is a Scam

A major cryptocurrency scam by Dingo Token, as per researchers who discovered backdoor features intended to steal users' money.

Check Point analysts observed this fraudulent charge modification 47 times before issuing the alert. The Dingo Smart Contract's purchase and sell fees are adjustable by up to 99% using a backdoor method called 'setTaxFeePercent,' according to Check Point Research (CPR), which examined the code for the contract. Despite the fact that the project's whitepaper claims that only a 10% fee for each transaction, this is the case. 

According to the cyber security software company, one customer purchased 427 million Dingo Tokens for $26.89 but received 4.27 million, or $0.27 value of Dingo Tokens. Dingo Token had a current market valuation of $223,992 and was rated 1915 on CoinMarketCap.  Recent complaints about the Dingo Token have also been made by users of CoinMarketCap and Twitter. Crypto dealer IncredibleJoker stated in a post on February 5 they could not sell their assets.

According to Check Point's head of product vulnerabilities research, Oded Vanunu, what his group uncovered at Dingo Token is becoming more regular, "this is a popular method that locks users' funds until the scammers gradually withdraw the entire sum. A growing number of scammers are lured to cryptocurrencies. They can remain unidentified. It moves quickly. It's profitable." 

Users are worried that once the creators determine that the value has peaked, they will turn on the backdoor to steal 99% of all users' coins. Investors in cryptocurrencies should be upfront about their questions in order to hear what other people have to say about a project. Whether you are new to trading, it is advised to diversify your money over several different coins and only utilize reliable exchange providers.

DingoToken: What is it?

DingoToken enables users to quickly deposit ANY tokens, including BEP-20 tokens, into an NFT. Now, a rare NFT can be turned into a basket containing a variety of different tokens. An entirely new NFT world is made possible by the DingoToken platform, a new protocol layer. The decentralized app (DApp) built on top of the DingoToken Protocol and targeted at art/collectible NFTs will also be made available for our public launch.

The DApp enables users to Mint / Generate an NFT, deposit their preferred asset into it, and then create their own NFTs. Only NFTs produced with the Dingo NFT Minting Station are supported in our v1 online application. To protect platform users' safety, steps are being taken by the firm. The option to mint one's own NFTs or buy those produced by Dingo Token platform users is available to users.


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User Security
Data Breach Financial Data Investors Sensitive data User Data User Security

CDSL Suffered a Data Breach, Exposing the Details of 43.9 Million Investors

 

According to cyber security consultancy company CyberX9, a vulnerability at a CDSL subsidiary, CDSL Ventures Limited (CVL), exposed personal and financial data of over 4 crore Indian investors twice in ten days. CDSL Ventures Ltd is a KYC registering agency independently registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), and Central Depository Services (India) Limited (CDSL) is a SEBI registered depository. 

CVL has taken swift action, according to CDSL, and the vulnerability has now been mitigated. According to CyberX9, the vulnerability was disclosed to CDSL on October 19, and the securities depository took roughly 7 days to address it, despite the fact that it could have been fixed instantly.

The vulnerability, according to CyberX9, a Chandigarh-based consultancy firm, was not very difficult, and it was detected for the second time by the firm. “CDSL was exposing extremely sensitive personal and financial data of about 43.9 million ( about 4.39 crore) investors in India. The data being exposed belonged to those who did their market securities KYC. In India, you have to go through a KYC process for investing in securities like stocks, mutual funds, bonds,” it said.

The information exposed by CDSL, according to the Chandigarh-based cyber security start-up, could be a virtual gold mine for phishers and scammers engaged in the so-called business of e-mail compromise, who frequently impersonate brokers, banks, and businesses in an attempt to dupe individuals and businesses into transferring funds to fraudsters. 

“We verified the fix before publication and it was no longer exploitable. Later, on October 29th, our research team got to work again and within a couple of minutes they found an easy and complete bypass for the fix that CDSL implemented to patch the earlier reported vulnerability. CERT-In and NCIIPC also accepted our vulnerability report,” CyberX9 said on its blog. According to CyberX9, the exposed data includes the investor's name, phone number, email address, PAN, salary range, father's name, and date of birth.

Phishers and scammers would have an unending supply of compelling scamming templates for calls and emails if they had access to CDSL KYC data. According to CyberX9, a database like this would provide fraudsters with a constant stream of new investors undergoing KYC, allowing them to target them. Financial fraud, identity theft, and exposing people to things like extortion, targeted assaults on people, and so on can all result from sensitive personal and financial data being exposed to large groups of people.
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Technology
Bitcoin Crypto Currency Dogecoin FBI Investors Scamming Technology

DeFi100, a Crypto Project, Allegedly Scammed Investors of $32 Million

 

According to reports and tweets, DeFi100, a cryptocurrency project, allegedly defrauded investors out of $32 million (roughly Rs. 233 crores). The project has now released a denial of the allegations, but some skepticism appears to still exist. After a very distasteful message appeared on their website on Sunday, rumors of people behind the project fleeing with the money began to circulate. The message on the DeFi100 website read, "We scammed you guys, and you can't do **** about it." DeFi100 has since clarified that their website has been hacked and that the hackers had placed the post, which has since been removed.

“DeFi100 coin exit scams, and runs away with $32 million, and leaves a message for all of us. Feels like the summer of 2017,” tweeted Cryptokanoon, co-founder Kashif Raza. 

DeFi100 is a cryptocurrency similar to Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and Ethereum, among others. It is, however, much less well-known than the other well-known digital assets. The website was still down at the time of publishing. “Oops, looks like the page is lost. This is not a fault, just an accident that was not intentional,” is what it says now. 

On Sunday, the crypto project announced on its official Twitter account that it had not exited as previously thought. “Firstly, total supply of D100 at present is less than 4 million tokens. At the beginning of the project, total supply was 2.5 million tokens. Secondly, D100 was never a yield farming protocol, which was holding investors funds with TVL over 32 million,” it said in a tweet. 

“Thirdly, total tokens sold during IDO were 750,000 at $0.80 per token. These facts are available in public for checking their authenticity. The rumours of stealing $32 million are absolutely false and baseless," it added in the subsequent tweet. "We reiterate it again that we have not made any exit." 

Although the DeFi100 founders have stated that they did not defraud the investors, nothing can be said before the website is up and running again. The value of D100, DeFi100's native token, has dropped 25% in the last 24 hours to $0.08, according to a Coindesk article (roughly Rs. 6). 

The reports of DeFi100 developers defrauding their investors came just days after the FBI, the US's main law enforcement agency, announced that it had received a record 1 million complaints related to online scams and investment frauds in the previous 14 months.
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Technology
$45 000 Bitcoin Crash Investors Technology

Bitcoin Slips 17% to $45,000 as Caution Sweeps Over Crypto

 

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency slumped as much as 17 percent to $45,000 on Tuesday, sparking concerns from investors over the cryptocurrency’s sky-high valuations and its volatility in an unpredictable market. The cryptocurrency traded 13% lower, at $47,608.24, as of 11:45 p.m. in New York.

The value of the cryptocurrency has soared in 2021, with the price more than doubling this year to reach a record $58,350.41. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla invested $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency this month and helped bitcoin to reach its market value above $50,000 but this investment may now lead to pressure on Tesla’s stock price as it has become sensitive to movements in bitcoin.

Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA stated that “the kind of rallies we’ve been seeing aren’t sustainable and just invite pullbacks like this.” Ether, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization also slumped more than 17% and last bought $1,461, down almost 30% from last week’s record high.

As per the reports of CoinDesk, last week bitcoin hit $1 trillion in market value for the first time in the history - though it has now slumped below $900 billion. It’s marked value surged up from the news of Wall Street bank and the investment of large firms like Mastercard and Tesla. According to an online tool from the researchers at Cambridge University, bitcoin’s network consumes more electricity than Pakistan and it has a negative impact on the environment as well.

Meanwhile, Sumit Gupta, Co-Founder & CEO of CoinDCX said that “after reaching an all-time high of $58,000, Bitcoin saw a price correction today. This was expected as markets go through such correction cycles. However, the market showed signs of recovery after falling nearly 17%. Investments in Bitcoin, like any other asset, should be from a long-term perspective as the fundamentals are still going strong. Hence it is advised that investors buy the dips and hold with a long-term perspective.”

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Tweets
Elon Musk Investors Technology Tweets

Think Before Investing - A Mantra for Investors Who Bindly Follow the Tweets of Elon Musk

 

Elon Musk, who's currently the richest man on the earth –can his single tweet about investing or trading can affect the decision-making of millions of investors and traders around the globe? Surprisingly, the answer is yes, in the recent past many investors have invested their money in the shares of various companies by blindly following Elon Musk. 

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX has more than 47 million followers on Twitter and his single tweet can lead to a never-seen-before surge in prices of holdings and stocks, his tweets regarding GameStop (GME), Shopify (SHOP), Signal boosted the stocks of these companies and on Internet, his influence is now termed as “The Musk Effect”.

Elon Musk’s tweet in the support of the Signal app helped the company to boost its stocks and in a single day, the company’s shares surged more than sixfold. In the support of Elon Musk’s tweet, millions of users switched to the Signal app which led to the crashing of the app for a short period. The market value of the Signal app was $390 million in three trading days given its surge in the Advance’s rally by more than 5100%. Some investors misinterpreted the tweet and invested in the shares of a company called ‘Signal Advance Inc.’

On January 27, the shares of video game retailer GameStop (GME) soared after Elon Musk tweeted “Gamestonk!!”, along with a link to Reddit’s WallStreetBets group. Shares of Polish game developers spiked 16% after Musk tweeted: “The esthetics of Cyberpunk are incredible btw….”, Cyberpunk 2077 is the company’s flagship game. Bitcoin (XBT) jumped as much as 14% last month after Musk added #bitcoin to his Twitter bio, similarly the shares of Canadian e-commerce firm Shopify (SHOP) saw a surge after Musk called it “great”. 

There are many instances when investors have misinterpreted the tweets of Musk, one such example is when Musk tweeted “Sandstorm is a masterpiece”, Sandstorm (SAND) is a Canadian gold miner and saw a surge in shares by 50% in premarket trading. Musk didn’t elaborate, leading many on Twitter to speculate he may have been referring to the 1999 techno song “Sandstorm” by a DJ named Darude and not the gold miner.

Elon Musk should be more cautious while choosing his tweet topics because many investors blindly follow anything he mentions on his Twitter account. In 2018, he had a confrontation with the Securities and Exchange Commission after he tweeted about his plans to take Tesla private, after that he negotiated with the SEC and stepped down as Tesla chairman and the company’s board consented to oversee his future relations with the company’s investors.

Ashley Ebersole, a partner with law firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner and a former SEC regulator and enforcement attorney stated, “you have a very vocal executive who enjoys putting out content on Twitter. If there was evidence of nefarious intent to pump up the price of something, the SEC would look at that. But absent that, people are going to tweet and there is no agency responsible for policing Twitter.”
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