MANILA - Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has warned against increasing phishing activities involving cryptocurrency, a digital asset that is seeing increased adoption among Filipinos looking for alternative forms of investment.
In a report, the Russian company said that cryptocurrency-related scams increased by a staggering 170 percent in the Philippines last year.
Meanwhile, it detected 64,080 crypto phishing scams in the Southeast Asia region. Worldwide, these types of cyber threats grew 40% to 5.04 million last year from around 3.6 million in 2021.
"Despite some problems that have occurred in the cryptocurrency market in the last six months, in many people's minds, cryptocurrencies are still a symbol of getting rich quick with minimal effort," said the security expert at Kaspersky, Olga Svistunova.
Hackers exploit this by taunting unsuspecting victims via phishing emails, which trick users into providing their personal information.
โ[The] stream of scammers parasitizing on this topic does not dry up. To lure victims into their networks, these scammers continue to come up with new and more interesting stories,โ Svistunova said.
Kaspersky noted that the usual culprits were giveaway scams and fake wallet phishing pages. It also recently detected an attack in which users are emailed a PDF (Portable Document Format) file โindicating that they supposedly signed up for a cryptocurrency cloud mining platform a long time ago and urgently need to withdraw many cryptocurrencies already that your account is inactive. โ
โThe file contains a link to a fake mining rig. To withdraw the crypto, the user must fill out a form with personal information, including the card or account number, and pay a commission, in this case, through a crypto wallet or directly to the specified wallet address,โ he explained.
Crypto Crime Hits a Record $20 Billion by 2022, According to a Report
Your subscription could not be saved. Try again.
Your subscription has been successful.
read next
subscribe to ASK MORE to get access to The Philippine Daily Inquirer and over 70 other titles, share up to 5 devices, listen to the news, download from 4am and share articles on social media. Call 896 6000.
For comments, complaints or inquiries, Contact Us.
