Cybercriminals have found a new target right after the announcement of Libra cryptocurrency and digital wallet, Calibra by Facebook.
Many of the cryptocurrency websites are educating people about Libra and its functions. Taking advantage of the situation, cybercriminals found a chance to get started and fraud people by registering similar domain names as of Libra and Calibra.
A risk protection company, Digital Shadows revealed that domain names registered referring Libra were around less than 20 in a day. After Facebook announced its new service, the registration of similar names raised to more than 110 per day.
Calibra wallet that is announced to be launched in 2020 faced the same situation. There was hardly any domain registration with this name but after its announcement, 65 registrations were noticed in a day.
All these registrations are not for fraud purpose though, as most of them are cybersquatting attempt. People are buying domain names and hoping that maybe sometime later Facebook would buy them at a good price.
However, some of these domains are registered for the villainous purpose, to be used for scams by impersonating to be Libra or Calibra.
Fraudsters are combining homograph attack and Punycode encoding system that will make domain look more real than suspicious.
Around six domains have been found by Digital Shadow that are pretending to be real. Some of these domains are already live.
Alex Guirakhoo of Digital Shadows said that online criminals replicate the whole website with some of the changes that aid in their wicked plans.
Whereas some of the differences should be noticed as sign of warning, like even if the site is quite similar but if it's at the end of domain list, it will not be a secure connection. Users may let this go unnoticed, allowing scammers to succeed in their evil act.
Due to the inability of users to differentiate, they might be willing to avail offers provided on scam sites. Like if a victim is found transferring Ethereum cryptocurrency to the fraudster’s address at the end, it obviously is a scam. Luckily not many people fell into the trap as there were only 0.2ETH in the wallet of crook.
There are some cybercriminals that are making an extra effort to look like official Libra.org site, as Canlibrawallet[.]com. It has a link to an original whitepaper on cryptocurrency and some of the URLs that are directed towards official Libra site.
Remember that there is a login page for which Facebook, Google or email can be used to log in but it is only for signing up for the newsletter through which users will be informed about Calibra going live.
There are scams that offer virtual private servers (VPS), faking that Libra blockchain is in their access even though it is not yet available.
On one of the sites, libra-vps[.]com, says that their VPS will let you have complete access to Libra protocol and its functionalities. It claims to let users create a wallet and/or send or receive Libra coins, within seconds.
Scammers never let a chance go by without using it for their own devilish purpose and the launch of Libra and Calibra is giving them a new opportunity. It is better to stay up to date about the news from the original sources as Facebook and do not fall into any other traps.
Read next: Can Facebook users trust Libra cryptocurrency?
Many of the cryptocurrency websites are educating people about Libra and its functions. Taking advantage of the situation, cybercriminals found a chance to get started and fraud people by registering similar domain names as of Libra and Calibra.
A risk protection company, Digital Shadows revealed that domain names registered referring Libra were around less than 20 in a day. After Facebook announced its new service, the registration of similar names raised to more than 110 per day.
Calibra wallet that is announced to be launched in 2020 faced the same situation. There was hardly any domain registration with this name but after its announcement, 65 registrations were noticed in a day.
All these registrations are not for fraud purpose though, as most of them are cybersquatting attempt. People are buying domain names and hoping that maybe sometime later Facebook would buy them at a good price.
However, some of these domains are registered for the villainous purpose, to be used for scams by impersonating to be Libra or Calibra.
Fraudsters are combining homograph attack and Punycode encoding system that will make domain look more real than suspicious.
Around six domains have been found by Digital Shadow that are pretending to be real. Some of these domains are already live.
Alex Guirakhoo of Digital Shadows said that online criminals replicate the whole website with some of the changes that aid in their wicked plans.
Whereas some of the differences should be noticed as sign of warning, like even if the site is quite similar but if it's at the end of domain list, it will not be a secure connection. Users may let this go unnoticed, allowing scammers to succeed in their evil act.
Due to the inability of users to differentiate, they might be willing to avail offers provided on scam sites. Like if a victim is found transferring Ethereum cryptocurrency to the fraudster’s address at the end, it obviously is a scam. Luckily not many people fell into the trap as there were only 0.2ETH in the wallet of crook.
There are some cybercriminals that are making an extra effort to look like official Libra.org site, as Canlibrawallet[.]com. It has a link to an original whitepaper on cryptocurrency and some of the URLs that are directed towards official Libra site.
Remember that there is a login page for which Facebook, Google or email can be used to log in but it is only for signing up for the newsletter through which users will be informed about Calibra going live.
There are scams that offer virtual private servers (VPS), faking that Libra blockchain is in their access even though it is not yet available.
On one of the sites, libra-vps[.]com, says that their VPS will let you have complete access to Libra protocol and its functionalities. It claims to let users create a wallet and/or send or receive Libra coins, within seconds.
Scammers never let a chance go by without using it for their own devilish purpose and the launch of Libra and Calibra is giving them a new opportunity. It is better to stay up to date about the news from the original sources as Facebook and do not fall into any other traps.
Read next: Can Facebook users trust Libra cryptocurrency?
