Elon Musk is again the focus of a giveaway scam that’s circling in crypto chats. In fact, web criminals have created a fake tweet from the CEO of Tesla that would promise prizes to crypto fans.
This is indeed a scam since, of course, Musk has never written such a thing but it’s probably a post modified thanks to photoshop or similar programs.
This is the text of the fake message:
Fake crypto giveaway: Elon Musk is not the first case
As often happens in these cases, under Musk’s post there are fake comments from people who say they are thrilled to have received cryptocurrencies. It’s a method to make users believe that it’s a legitimate operation, when of course it’s not.
Unfortunately, more and more often the names of Elon Musk and other characters of the crypto world and beyond are used by criminals to carry out this kind of online scams. A short time ago, for example, some criminals had even hacked Twitter, posting similar comments on the profile of Musk, the Winklevoss twins, Bill Gates and many others.
As always, these are scams. Every time someone asks for passwords, seeds, data or to send crypto, it’s always online scams that are only aimed at stealing personal information or funds.
In addition, unlike scams in the traditional world, in the cryptocurrency world it is even more difficult to get the funds back because once a transaction has been made, it is no longer changeable as it is recorded on the blockchain. Sometimes exchanges, in case of scams, block addresses and do not allow hackers to liquidate their assets, but funds are not returned in 99% of cases.
For example, in the case of dForce, hackers had returned the funds, being unable to liquidate the stolen funds.
There are also databases to check whether an address was used in a previous scam and is thus owned by criminals, but unfortunately these are often not updated with the latest information.
