Cybercriminals are getting smarter at ripping off unaware individuals on the internet by the day.
Online security researchers have recently uncovered a network made up of more than 11,000 domains that cybercriminals and scammers use to promote various fake investment schemes to European users of the internet, according to Bleeping Computer.
The researchers also cautioned that investments are never guaranteed to come without risk and that real investment platforms don't offer account managers for small investments.
Investment Scam Domain Background Details
Researchers from Singapore-based online security company Group-IB revealed that its Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-GIB) found a network infrastructure containing over 10,000 "rogue resources" for fake investment scams.
CERT-GIB found the resources to be similar to the ones targeting people living in North America and the Eurasian content.
For this investigation, the team found that the network is targeting people living in the European region, specifically the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Norway, Sweden, and the Czech Republic.
As with any fake investment scheme, the network's goal is to convince potential victims to "invest" in an opportunity for high-return investments through repeated payments.
How Does The Scheme Work?
To do so, scammers would first advertise the investment scam by creating fake investment ads on various social media networks such as YouTube and Facebook to gain the possible maximum amount of attention.
The ads usually utilize statements like some of the most famous people are using the fake investment network service from Elon Musk to local celebrities. It would then say the offer being advertised is unique, and you only need to pay a minimal deposit of €250 to sign up, and that they should click on the link to learn more.
To really convince potential victims, scammers use burner social media accounts to leave a comment on the ad saying that they were happy about the returns in such a short time since they paid the €250 sign-up fee.
Victims who click on the ad would be redirected to fake broker sites featuring success stories of those that "signed up" for the scheme. After which, the site would ask the victims for their contact details so they could be reached by a "customer agent" to provide the investment terms and conditions.
Should the victim agrees with the customer agent, scammers will provide a link to the victim to a personal account that has a depleted balance. The victims are then required to replenish said balance to trading. At this point, victims would provide their credit card details which the scammers will use to fleece people of their money through future campaigns or resell on the dark web.
Once the €250 is deposited, the fake broker site will provide the victim with the account they paid for through a fake dashboard, where the profits from their "trading" are shown. This sense of accomplishment makes the victim more eager to invest more money, which is prompted by the scammers asking them for more to increase their earnings.
Should the victim cashes out, the scammers will ask the victim for final payment to meet the payout threshold. Should they not agree to pay, they will have realized that they are now a victim of the fake investment scheme.
How To Avoid Being The Network's Victim
Group-IB recommends that people check with a site that provides detailed information on legitimate and established brokers for them to confirm a broker site's legitimacy.
Searching for reviews of the broker site is also recommended as established ones have reviews that provide a better understanding of the service the broker site provides.
Finally, personal account managers are not needed to tell what you need to do by phone, especially for small investments.
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