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Who benefits from the creation of memcoins
Russians remain in the risk zone
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Fraudsters took advantage of the popularity of Donald and Melania Trump's cryptocurrency and began actively creating phishing sites with promises to make money on such coins. Criminals also registered cryptocurrencies on all relatives of the US President in different variations: Eric, Barron, Ivanka, Tiffany, Donald Trump - Jr. and so on. Experts believe that the trend will continue due to the anonymity of tokens, the lack of transparency on trading platforms and the simplicity of the process of registering memcoin clones.

Who benefits from the creation of memcoins

Attackers are using the topic of Trump's memcoin ($Trump) as bait to steal users' cryptocurrency in Telegram. They distribute posts in groups dedicated to earning, offering to participate in supposedly free token giveaways and exclusive NFTs. The scheme is based on promises of high profits with minimal effort. The authors of the posts claim: to get the prize, you need to go to a special bot, and then to the site, where allegedly give away $900 thousand in tokens. At the final stage, users are asked to pay a "verification fee" of 0.2 Ton, but people never receive the promised coins.

ТГ
Photo: Izvestia/Pavel Volkov

Despite the fact that the "fee" looks insignificant, mass schemes of this kind can bring attackers large sums, said Kaspersky GReAT expert Georgy Kucherin.

- Fraudsters quickly adapt to current trends and can start using the new cryptocurrency as bait to steal cid phrases from different crypto wallets or Telegram account data. "Such schemes by attackers can lead not only to financial losses for users, but also to loss of control over the cryptocurrency," he told Izvestia.

Attackers took advantage of the infoprovody on the occasion of the release of tokens $Trump and $Melania to create a network of crypto-fraud phishing sites, explained senior analyst of Digital Risk Protection of F.A.C.C.T. company Maria Sinitsyna. Maria Sinitsyna. According to her, experts have discovered more than a dozen sites for stealing funds from cryptocurrency wallets, which use memcoins to attract victims.

- Holders of wallets are offered to link them to the resource to check their right to participate in operations with cryptocurrency. The resources list the official address of the token, but the victim is asked for a cid-phrase when connecting the wallet. Also, fraudsters can either "hijack" a cryptocurrency wallet, or connect a drainer program to it to withdraw all funds, or simply take away funds under the pretext of buying $Trump cryptocurrency using fake credentials," the expert noted.

Мемкоин Трамп
Photo: F.A.C.C.T. press service.

According to Phishman CEO Alexei Gorelkin, only the creators of "skamcoins" (fraudulent coins) win in such schemes. After a token is issued, it is "hyped" on thematic forums with the creation of artificial excitement, then the tokens are bought up by gullible clients and the currency grows sharply, and in the end, the pyramid quickly collapses, sometimes in a matter of minutes.

- Either the victim does not get what he paid for, or is deprived of what he has. In parallel, they collect data for future attacks," the expert warned.

Swindlers are also actively creating phishing sites that masquerade as popular cryptocurrency wallets or exchanges, explained "Izvestia" in BI.ZONE Brand Protection. Such schemes are becoming more and more. So, since January 17, the company's experts have identified the registration of 255 domains for the new memcoin $Trump and 89 - on $Melania. This number can include both empty, legitimate and fake pages.

Мемкоин мелания
Photo: F.A.C.C.T. press service.

Phishing sites steal both money and sensitive data. There is no difference in the use of Donald and Melania coins, but now fraudsters have more room for action with such a wide choice, Irina Zinovkina, head of analytical research at Positive Technologies, specified.

Russians remain in the risk zone

Russians are in the risk zone, as they can use most cryptocurrencies without any restrictions, said Sergey Kuznetsov, the creator of the crypto game Frogs Run in Telegram. According to him, there are two main scenarios with memcoins.

- First, there is the risk of buying a fake currency that cannot be sold after purchase. Such a scheme is called honeypot and serves as a lure for people with low crypto literacy. You can get in, but you can't get out. Second, the authors of "skimpcoins" often use the so-called ragpool. This is a process where the owner of the token withdraws money without announcement and collapses the liquidity. The exchange rate depreciates hundreds of times and sometimes thousands of times, crypto coins turn into pennies," the expert warned.

крипта
Photo: Izvestia/Pavel Volkov

According to him, fraudulent coins appeared two months before the inauguration, but actively spread in recent days. On one of the monitoring cryptoplatforms dozens of dubious currencies related to the presidential family (Eric, Barron, Ivanka, Tiffany, Donald Trump - Jr.) are available, while only two memcoins were officially presented: from Donald and Melania Trump, the expert added.

- People are letting their guard down in the pursuit of odds. On modern platforms, anyone can upload their own contract, but the site gives a warning about risks and information that it has not passed the site's audit. This information is usually at the very bottom, to the right under the token, so it is not always obvious to the user," the expert explained.

Fraudsters lead users to fake exchanges and crypto exchanges where they steal their data by drawing various graphs with favorable conversions. This affects users from the Russian Federation as quite active in the field of blockchain investments and schemes related to the cryptocurrency market, said Igor Bederov, Director of Investigations at T.Hunter.

- Such third-party platforms may soon be of interest to law enforcement agencies, as they often have all the signs of fraudulent activities. Anyone can make a meme currency with Ivanka's name, for example, and promote it if they have a stockpile of free money. They actively imitate the official Trump coin, but without any mention from the official Trump Foundation organization, which supports the US President's family and himself," he added.

Трамп и Мелания
Photo: REUTERS/Daniel Cole

According to the expert, creators of regular cryptocurrencies, not memcoins, on average earn 3-30 times the amount of money invested. To estimate how much fraudsters earn with fake coins in honor of Trump's relatives, it is impossible at the moment.

According to an anonymous source of Izvestia, there are already cases in Russia when people who like to make a quick profit bought tokens like $Trunp or $Tremp, imitating the official currency, and lost money because of it.

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