In a recent announcement, the DOJ said that seven malicious domains used by threat actors in ‘pig butchering’ campaigns had been seized. These campaigns involved threat actors luring their victims with social engineering tactics before conducting fraudulent activities against them.
Over $10 million from May to August this year have been lost from the total of five victims of the pig butchering attacks.
The malicious domain hosting the pig butchering campaigns impersonated the Singapore International Monetary Exchange.
Reports revealed that the seized domains had impersonated the Singapore International Monetary Exchange to trick victims. In this campaign, the threat actors had convinced the victims about a bogus survey of a legitimate cryptocurrency opportunity.
Once the victims have transferred their funds into the deposit addresses provided by the threat actors through the malicious domains, these funds are sent to different private wallets, concealing their source.
In most cases, the fraudulent actors search for their victims on social media sites, dating apps, and random text messages. Then, the scammers would try to gain the victims’ trust through social engineering tactics before urging them to engage in a fake financial investment. Sometimes, the scammers also attempt to get the victims’ financial account details or push them to invest in cryptocurrency.
As the victims fell prey, the hackers could collect their funds or bank account information using the malicious domains they set up for the pig butchering campaigns.
In October 2022, the FBI posted an advisory regarding such criminal schemes, wherein, on average, a victim loses about $122,000 in a single transaction. Most of the victims recorded were females aged 25 to 40.
The authorities also shared that a sharp rise in pig butchering campaigns has been observed, with most beginning on social media platforms until the scammers begin to redirect their victims to other malicious websites where money or financial details are aimed to be stolen.
Experts are concerned that scammers have always been willing to go the extra mile to invest effort into fooling their targets until they can earn their trust and eventually perform what they initially intended to do, which is to steal hundreds of thousands from the victims.
Thus, it has always been advised to be cautious about talking to unfamiliar people online and avoid entering sensitive credentials on websites sent by suspicious people.
