The FBI released an advisory regarding the surge of Pig Butchering scams for cryptocurrency that steals crypto funds from unaware users.
The Pig Butchering is a new social engineering scam where actors contact targets known as the “Pigs” on a social media platform to build their trust by engaging in extensive communication. The actors have devised this long-term conversation to establish the idea of a romantic partnership and fabricated friendship.
In some instances, the attackers could scam their targets by posing as real friends or relatives. Once the fraudster establishes its connection to a target, it will propose a fake investment scam for a cryptocurrency.
These scams will deceive potential victims since they will visit a dashboard with a positive return on investments and massive returns that generates profits. If a target is convinced, the fake investment will prompt its target to continue to the next stage of the scam by pressing the amounts offered on the platform and not withdrawing anything.
If victims attempt to cash out their investments, they will be instructed by the scammers to pay their income taxes, international transaction costs, additional processing fees, and more.
However, the fraudster will stop contacting the target and takes down the fake cryptocurrency platform, resulting in the loss of funds.
Pig Butchering will only be one of the growing numbers of crypto-related scams.
Experts stated that scams like Pig Butchering are recognisable for incompetent users. The federal law enforcement agency said that the attributes of the Pig Butchering campaign follow a standard method of a common social engineering tactic.
Users should be aware that every stranger on social media that pitches for an investment opportunity should be tagged as a red flag. In addition, users should check the URL of the investment platform to see if it matches the official website of a popular cryptocurrency exchange.
When launched, some investment apps are also untrusted by Windows, or AV solutions classify them as malicious.
As of now, users who think they may have been a victim of this new campaign are encouraged to file a report to the cybersecurity authorities. These reports will help law enforcement agencies to hunt these fraudsters.
