[Discussion] - Twitter is a hotbed for crypto scam bots


Userlevel 7
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In case you haven't seen it @ published a blog post on crypto scam bots crawling all over Twitter as of late and casuing utter chaos, similar to the classic, 'Nigerian letter' scam. 
 
If you haven't seen it, be sure to give it a read here. It's an in-depth look at how these cyrpto scam bots are working and what can be done to combat them. 
 
Have you heard about this yet? Do you know someone who has fallen for this? Have a question for @
 
Let's get it kicked off below and get into it! 
 
 

38 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +25
I have indeed seen a lot of these, and I can't believe people fall for it.  But I guess when people are not paying attention, they get sucked in. Bottom line, if it is something that seems to good to be true (like free money) then it is.  There are still people trying to sell that bridge!  😞
Userlevel 4
Badge +3
Any mass communication (1 to many) that costs nothing is open to easy abuse. Their ROI doesn’t have to be much for it to be profitable. If only 1 in 1 million people respond then it is profitable. 
If there was a way to charge a trivial amount per post, or per email sent, it would instantly kill off a lot of spam.
being charged 1/1000 of a dollar to send an email makes no difference to a normal person or business; but if you are a spammer sending a few million emails a day it would be a crippling cost.
Userlevel 4
Badge +6
When I go through tweets to keep up with news, sometimes I read the comments and most always look like they are scams with links or just unintelligible responses. I'll keep to just reading the main tweets and being selective of who I follow as well as links that I click on. This is why we can't have nice things. 
Userlevel 1
Thanks for sharing it. It explains clearly about the scam happening 
Userlevel 3
If we can't make scams stop looking like legitimate marketing efforts (giveaways, prizes, etc.) maybe we can stop our marketing efforts from looking like scams so people know that something for nothing = scam.  Maybe this is a place where "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" isn't so bad because the baby is like Baby Sinclair from Dinosaurs.
 


 
Wishful thinking anyway.
Userlevel 1
One more article - https://qz.com/1223593/twitters-latest-bot-problem-crypto-scammers/
Userlevel 7
There is a very simple solution that I have implemented...don't use Twitter. It is that simple. ;)
Userlevel 7
Badge +24
Oh man, I wish I could do that, but so much breaking crypto news starts on twitter, that you almost have to have a twitter feed if you want to be in the space. 
Userlevel 7
@ wrote:
Oh man, I wish I could do that, but so much breaking crypto news starts on twitter, that you almost have to have a twitter feed if you want to be in the space. 
Not if all the sensible people decide to leave. Alternatively, just have a corporate account which is used for absolutely nothing else.
Userlevel 1
https://news.bitcoin.com/scammers-are-ruining-crypto-twitter-and-twitter-is-to-blame/   :manlol::manlol:
Userlevel 7
Badge +33
Thankfully most of my clients don't even use Twitter. 
Userlevel 2
We have to pay attention to all social network
Userlevel 7
Badge +8
Never like Twitter. This seals the deal.
We can't bury our heads in the sand, so we need to know that Webroot has our back. Does Webroot recognize the activity of cryptobots as they read and write tens of thousands of files in rapid succession?
Userlevel 7
@ wrote:
We can't bury our heads in the sand, so we need to know that Webroot has our back. Does Webroot recognize the activity of cryptobots as they read and write tens of thousands of files in rapid succession?
This, is methinks, one for the Webroot professionals... @, may we have the benefit of your expertise on this interesting point?
 
Many thanks in anticipation.
 
Regards, Baldrick
Not just twitter, they happen in other social media platforms too 
Thanks for sharing .
Userlevel 7
Badge +62
Thank you Drew!
 
I get twittered out! 😃
Userlevel 3
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"Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently announced a new verification process is coming that will make it easier for all users to obtain verification"
 
Facebook isn't the only Social Network choosing growth ahead of everything else (including security)
Userlevel 5
anything out there on internet ( facebook,twitter,mails,....) if you think you will gain something from it then it is a scam, when u think it is too good to be true then it is scam.
How to teach people to stop looking for that, stop them from opening attachments from unknown contacts
This will never stop
Userlevel 3
Badge +3
Was wondering when they would start there
Userlevel 4
Badge +5
As with almost all social media and blog posts (except in technical forums, such as this), it is best to just leave the comment sections alone.
Userlevel 7
Badge +35
@ wrote:
We can't bury our heads in the sand, so we need to know that Webroot has our back. Does Webroot recognize the activity of cryptobots as they read and write tens of thousands of files in rapid succession?
Hello @,
 
The Crypto Scam Bots as mentioned in the blog post are simply scams on Twitter, so there is no file activity to detect. If the tweets were to contain malicious links, we would block the the links.
 
You may be referring to malicious cryptocurrency miners or encrypting ransomware, which we do protect against but are unrelated to the Crypto Scam Bots mentioned in this thread. 
 
-Dan
I was literally just talking to my brother about this the other day. These things are everywhere on Twitter, its ridiculous. I know a couple non-techie friends of mine that almost fell for these scams. Luckily they both asked me about it before doing anything, just to verify. Would have been really bad.
People just have to learn to be as careful and skeptical online as they are in real life. If someone walked up to you on the street and offered a quick easy way to make thousands of dollars, you'd run away. Do the same thing when you see a similar tweet/post/email, and you'll be ahead of 95% of the population.

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