Cybercriminals exploited Tesla Inc’s CEO, Elon Musk’s name, to do a heist of almost $2 million in Bitcoin (BTC) within the last two months, in line with information compiled by Adaptiv.
What transpired
The cybersecurity firm’s business executive, Justin Lister, advised ZDNet last Friday that they tracked down 67 questionable Bitcoin “vanity addresses,” that exploited the billionaire’s name to create away with concerning 214 BTC, worth a bit over $2 million when it was announced.
The vanity addresses have phrases containing “Elon Musk,” or alternative similar-sounding words, for instance, “1ELonMUsKZzrUnEr5Xok8abiXhhqGbdrnK5C,” ZDNet announced.
The scammers took advantage of live streams at Alphabet Inc.’s videos from YouTube to lure in unsuspecting users, the complaints studied by Adaptiv advised.
To pull off the scams, they used popular YouTube accounts with a multitude of followers and altered the account names and graphics to fit those of celebrities, like Musk, during this case.
Is it trying to say something
This isn’t the just the first time that these scammers have used the Tesla CEO’s name to profit in cryptocurrencies.
Musk’s posts on Twitter Inc.’s platform usually see “special” scams in leading replies. Celebrity chef, Tyler Florence’s confirmed that Twitter account was hacked in October 2018 and used to announce similar cryptocurrency tricks in Musk’s name, subsequent internet reported at the time.
The Tesla CEO had acknowledged the scams earlier in July that year during a tweet, expressing he notably revered the individuals pulling off scams regarding the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum.
I want to understand who is running the Etherium scambots! Mad skills …— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
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