LinkedIn has become, despite itself, the favorite target of cryptocurrency scams. This phenomenon has been confirmed by the FBI offices in San Francisco and Sacramento. Scammers favor LinkedIn as a professional networking platform to give credibility to investment offers.
In its position as the main professional social network, LinkedIn is the preferred target of scams and scams of all kinds. Already in February 2022, a study carried out by the company specializing in computer security Egress showed how phishing campaigns have exploded on LinkedIn.
In 2021, malware was rampant on the social network of pros, with spoofed job offers that harbored malware. However, as our colleagues from the CNBC channel report, LinkedIn is currently experiencing “a recent upsurge in fraud on its platform” especially in connection with cryptocurrencies.
Cryptocurrency scams explode on LinkedIn
Sean Ragan, FBI special agent in charge of the San Francisco and Sacramento (California) offices, added that it was a “significant threat”. Generally, the procedure remains the same: scammers pretend to be professionals to contact LinkedIn users.
They initiate the conversation by offering tohelp users earn money from lucrative cryptocurrency investments. First, they invite the targets to go to real specialized platforms like CoinBase for example. For several months, the target will indeed earn money thanks to the investments made.
A necessary step to gain the trust of the victim. At this precise moment, the scammer asks to move the sums won to a site controlled by the fraudster. This is how the money is emptied from the account. According to victims interviewed by CNBC, trusting LinkedIn as a professional connection platform gave credibility to the investment offers.
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Beware of fake profiles and surreal job offers
“The FBI has seen an increase in this particular investment fraud, quite different from a long-running scam in which the criminal pretends to show a romantic interest in the subject in order to persuade him to part with his money.” assures agent Sean Ragan.
LinkedIn invites users to connect only to people you know and/or whom you trust. In addition, the social network also encourages people to be wary “job offers that sound too good to be true or that require you to pay anything upfront”.
