Dating App Users Targeted by Crypto Fraudsters
Researchers with cybersecurity firm Sophos recently shed light on a new and somewhat unusual scam. The campaign was dubbed CryptoRom and was targeting iPhone users in legitimate dating applications.
The way the CryptoRom scam was set up shows a high level of creativity and uses highly believable tools, according to the reports. The scammers went on dating apps used by iPhone users and fished for their victims. Once they have picked their mark, the scammers would slowly chat them up and earn their trust. At some point, the crooks would ask the victim to install a fake trading application.
They'd encourage their marks to use the fake app, even let them withdraw money and make a bit of profit from the fake app, to solidify their trust and ease them into investing larger sums into it. The victims were even offered loans, transferred from within the fake trading app, to help them get started with large-volume trades.
Of course, CryptoRom being a scam run by criminals, there was no real return on investment, as the entire application was fake. Once the victims caught on to the fact they were being scammed, the criminals would just block their profiles inside the app and ghost them, usually leaving a sizable hole in the victim's pocket at well.
The crooks who operated the fake trading app scam managed to collect an estimated $1.4 million from all their victims so far, researchers believe. The marks were coaxed into buying crypto using a popular crypto exchange app and then dumping it into the fake app.
The campaign mirrors a scam that was run earlier in 2021 and targeted citizens of Asian countries. This time around, the victims are European and American citizens. The legitimate dating applications that the crooks used as a pool to fish for their marks include Tinder, Facebook Dating and Bumble. Researchers also noted the high level of polish that this scam comes with.
The fake trading application was made to look very believable and had domains associated with it that also looked trustworthy. The app even seemed to have functioning customer support, which shows real dedication and proves that going the extra mile in making scams more believable will work wonders for the criminals running them, given how much money the CryptoRom gang managed to collect.
