Fake Twitter Celebs Made $5k Worth ETH For One Night

Scammers used fake Elon Musk, Vitalik Buterin and other celebs fake Twitter accounts to steal user's Ethers

08 February 2018 4970

Scammers managed to steal more than $ 5,000 in Ethereum in just one night, using the credulity of some crypto currency users. This is reported by Bleeping Computer.

To realize their criminal intent, they created many profiles on Twitter, allegedly belonging to famous personalities, and clogged the network with messages about the distribution of cryptocoins. To participate in the distribution to the address indicated by the scammers, it was suggested to send a small amount to the wallet to get it back tenfold.

All messages were based on one template, although the amounts and addresses of wallets in them could vary: "We distribute 200 Ethereum to ETH-community. The first 50 who sent 0.2 ETH to the address below will receive 2.0 ETH to the addresses from which the transactions were sent. "

Analysts managed to detect the following fraudulent accounts on Twitter:

Elon Mask: @eonmusk, @elonnmuusk, @eIonmsuk
John McAfee: @officialnmcafee, @officialnmcafee
Vitalik Buterin: @VitallikButern, @VitallikButern
Warren Buffett: @WarrenBuffert
Coinbase: @coindase
CoinMarketCap: @ coinmarketcap3
OmiseGo: @Omiise_Go
Nano: @nanocurrency

Also, at least 8 Ethereum-addresses were found, which scammers used to collect money. Probably, this is not all scammers' addresses, which means that the amount of stolen assets may be higher.

Fake Elon Mask Twitter

A total of 7.69 ETH were transferred to the above addresses, and 6.2 ETH of them were transferred overnight. The more of the money were collected by fake John McAfee, Vitalik Buterin and Elon Mask.

Ethereum Blockchain

Great Chinese Firewall to Block ETH Explorer

Looks like it's the first time that a blockchain observer (etherscan. io in this case) has become a target for Internet censorship in China

04 December 2019 139

The Great Chinese Firewall, used by the authorities to regulate access to foreign sites, blocked etherscan.io, one of the most popular services for viewing the statistics of the Ethereum network.

According to CoinDesk, as of early December, the portal is not accessible from IP addresses in mainland China. According to the service greatfire.org, blocking has been carried out at least since October 30.

Presumably this is the first time that a blockchain observer has become a target for Internet censorship in China.

This is another instance of friction between the decentralized and immutable technology of blockchain and the tightly controlled, centralized government of China. We should expect additional problems like these in the future as blockchain is integrated further into the Chinese economy and daily life.

Matthew Graham

CEO, Sino Global Capital

In his opinion, we should expect similar problems in the future, since the blockchain is increasingly being integrated into the Chinese economy.

It is not known exactly what caused etherscan.io to become blocked.

Last year, it was reported that users encoded censored articles in an Ethereum transaction and shared the hashes of these transactions in the WeChat messenger using etherscan.io.

Some have used this feature to post sensitive messages without the need to worry about the message being blocked or removed, or their identity being exposed. Anyone with a blockchain explorer like Etherscan can view these messages, so it is not surprising that this website has come in the crosshairs of internet censors.

Matthew Graham

CEO, Sino Global Capital

The founder of etherscan.io, Matthew Tan, confirmed that the site in China has been blocked "for the past three months." He could not name the exact date and reason for what happened.