Bitcoin QR Code phishing website generates up to $40,000 in illicit gains within a month.
Following last week's report of malicious Google Chrome extensions stealing 1.4 million XRP from users, additional malicious phishing websites have been discovered, which have stolen over $40,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) from users within a month.
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Fake QR Code Generation Websites
According to Harry Denley, the security director of MyCrypto, at least 9 phishing websites posing as Bitcoin address QR code generators have been discovered in the past few weeks. After further investigation, Denley found that these 9 domains all use the same interface, indicating they may have been created by the same person.
To prevent users from making mistakes when entering addresses, most mainstream wallet providers or blockchain explorers offer the function to convert Bitcoin addresses into QR codes, reducing the risk of investors losing funds due to address input errors. These phishing websites claim to convert user addresses into corresponding QR codes, but regardless of what the user enters, the QR code generated by the website is the developer's own address. Once the victim scans the QR code and sends Bitcoin, the Bitcoin goes into the developer's pocket. According to Denley, these websites have scammed 4.9 BTC from victims.
The list of phishing website domains is as follows:
- bitcoin-barcode-generator.com
- bitcoinaddresstoqrcode.com
- create-bitcoin-qr-code.com
- free-bitcoin-qr-codes.com
- freebitcoinqrcodes.com
- bitcoins-qr-code.com
- qr-code-bitcoin.com
- qrcodebtc.com
- btc-to-qr.com
These 9 websites essentially generate the same five Bitcoin address QR codes regardless of what the user enters. According to the investigation, these addresses have received a total of over 7 BTC, most likely all from victims.
Counterfeit Bitcoin Transaction Accelerators
After tracking the servers of the aforementioned QR code generation websites, Harry Denley discovered another type of phishing website. These websites pretend to be Bitcoin transaction accelerators, claiming that users can speed up Bitcoin transactions by paying a fee of 0.001 BTC, profiting illegally. In reality, accelerating Bitcoin transactions is not a myth, but theoretically, only miners with a certain amount of hashing power in the Bitcoin network can provide such a service. Some mining pool websites display Bitcoin transaction acceleration services, where miners are willing to prioritize packaging specified transactions from the transaction pool if users are willing to pay additional miner fees, and confirm your transactions once they gain the right to record.
According to data, these websites have profited 17.6 BTC through this method, with illicit gains exceeding $100,000.
The list of phishing website domains is as follows:
- bitcoin-tx-transaction-accelerator.com
- bitcoin-transaction-accelerator.com
- viabtc-transaction-accelerator.com
- transaction-accelerator.com
Related Reading
- New Types of OTC Trading Scams! A List of Scam Techniques to Watch Out For
- Research Shows: Traditional Financial Fraud is Over 60 Times More Than the Cryptocurrency Industry
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