Threads would be an ideal playground for scammers

Scammers are out on the new social network Threads. It didn’t take them long to get the hang of it.

The enormous success of the platform launched by Meta to finish off a competitor on land has not escaped anyone. And among the accounts that talk about crypto-currencies on this new social network, we are already starting to see scammers arrive. What not to be too disoriented.

The scam in the crypto world, old as the world (of crypto)

Some might argue that the crypto market itself is a scam, and the past year, including the chain scandals surrounding the FTX platform, could hardly prove them entirely wrong. But no need to look among the leaders of the biggest exchange platforms to find scammers. These represent the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars per year. And if blockchain technology is theoretically secure, there is a flip side to this coin: in the event of phishing, it is almost impossible to recover the coins or tokens that have been stolen, even if we know precisely which account the has recovered.

So, the scammers compete in ingenuity in their campaigns. However, this is not the only way to empty a wallet. For example, it is possible to do this by arranging for a user to download malware, which will allow all the necessary information to be recovered. For this, the most important thing is to give him confidence in the link on which he clicks.

Less than a week, and already identity theft

What better way to build trust than a link shared by a user you already know and follow? Or, in any case, someone who looks a lot like him? Already on Twitter, impersonations of crypto influencers or exchange staff members were commonplace, and moderation almost consistently lagged in deleting these accounts. Now it’s stress test time for Threads.

Indeed, the social network is not a week old already, the same pattern repeats itself. Thus, as of Thursday July 6, the day of the platform’s launch, crypto influencer Jeffrey Huang, known as Machi Big Brother, posted his Threads profile on Twitter. In response, one of his subscribers posted another screenshot, that of a profile very similar to his, except that he did not have the certified badge. The latter has not yet posted a phishing link or made any other attempt, but his presence remains at least suspicious. Remember, moreover, that Huang himself is not entirely free from reproach.

Sources: Cointelegraph, corner newspaper