XRP phishing scam promising fake giveaway by Ripple detected

XRP forensics experts at Xrplorer have detected a complex XRP phishing scam that is attempting to swindle unsuspecting XRP users by promising a fake XRP giveaway.

The scammers send a minute amount of XRP to numerous XRP addresses on the blockchain with a message promising a three billion XRP giveaway by the Ripple Foundation.

XRP phishing scam

The scammers send the small amount of XRP with the aim of making unsuspecting users open a page appearing to be Ripple’s Insights blog offering a massive promotional giveaway.

The scam website is designed to appear extremely similar to legit websites that are relatively well-known among XRP investors. However, this one lures unsuspecting investors to provide their account details, including their secret keys.

Such websites utilize homoglyph domain names that are easy to miss in a hurry. Homoglyph domains change replaceable characters such as ripple.com for rípple.com. Characters from different languages that appear similar have different codes and can be used to set web domains.

Crypto scams on the rise

Scammers have collected more than two million XRP from unsuspecting investors and laundered just nearly as much through crypto exchange platforms ChangeNOW and CoinSwitch.

As Cryptopolitan previously reported, Cryptocurrency scams have collected more than 1.4 billion dollars from unsuspecting investors. Chinese Ponzi scheme Wotoken accounts for the majority of the stolen funds with more than one billion dollars of stolen funds.

The pandemic outbreak also bought with it numerous coronavirus-related scams that offered fake coronavirus testing kits. One alleged scammer was arrested by US authorities who wanted to sell a coronavirus-related website to an undercover agent posing as a scammer.