I hope you are all well and having an excellent week, welcome to CryptoGod-1’s blog on all things crypto. In this post I will be looking at the recent work of the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) in the U.K. and their tackling of possible crypto phishing websites.
National Fraud Intelligence Bureau
The authorities in the United Kingdom have announced that the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB) blocked 43 websites which were suspected of containing crypto phishing threats to users. The Commissioner's official updates as part of recent disclosed reports in diverse field noted a number of potential fraudulent activities with bad actors impersonating popular blockchain-based firms.
The NFIB identified a spoof email address which the bad actors were making use of for crypto phishing activities. These addresses focused on targeting the customers of blockchain.com, a digital asset services platform, after them attempted to exploit vulnerabilities. Investigations made on the back of the report led to 42 additional scam websites.
Included within these addresses were “actionfraud.info” and “departmentfraud.com” and the authorities noted they shut down those websites upon discovery. The UK’s national fraud combating unit, Action Fraud, noted in a tweet that the tactics deployed by scammers to exploit users includes sending email's that lead directly to scam websites. They noted that the fake emails often included something along the lines of a claim the user had won a 36-piece Tupperware set.
The agency also noted that people who fall victim to or suspect phishing incidents should report them immediately for further investigations. They noted that as of December 2023 the amount of reports from citizens has led to 295,300 scam websites being blocked. The broader digital asset market continues to battle the ongoing phishing attempts of the bad actors who exploit user through mimicking official accounts of Web3 firms.
On-chain analytics firm Chainalysis reported an increase in approval phishing scams last year, with almost $375 million stolen. These approval phishing involves tactics which aim to make users sign fraudulent transactions. This then gives scammers access to transact with the user’s tokens.
Action Fraud has urged Web3 firms to step up support and compliance teams which can be used to help track down phishing activities in the industry along with increasing their users education in avoiding signing transactions unless they are sure of the other party.
On the 23rd of January 2024 a phishing attack targeted web3 firms by sending an through an email campaign. This reportedly drained about $3.3 million worth of assets and the bad actors targeted customers of WalletConnect, Token Terminal, and De.Fi. They sent out emails about airdrops that contained phishing links to fake community loyalty rewards programs. Following on from that it was discovered that hackers had gained access to email marketing firm MailerLite which allowed them to conduct the breach.
The company noted that a team member mistakenly granted access after clicking an image while responding to a customer service:
The team member, responding to a customer inquiry via our support portal, clicked on an image that was deceptively linked to a fraudulent Google sign-in page. With this level of access, they were able to impersonate user accounts. The focus was exclusively on cryptocurrency-related accounts.”
Have a great day.
CryptoGod-1.
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