By Emmanuel Ogbodo
Crypto scammers are exploiting recent assassination attempts against former US President Donald Trump to lure victims into a crypto doubling scheme, as revealed in a Bitdefender study. The scammers hijack YouTube channels to broadcast convincing deep fakes and entice viewers to participate in crypto giveaways by scanning QR codes embedded in the videos.
Bitdefender researchers have identified dozens of hijacked YouTube channels since July 16, streaming deep fake videos of Elon Musk purportedly discussing the assassination attempt and his support for Trump. Some hijacked channels have been renamed to “Tesla” or “Donald Trump Jr.” Scammers insert looped live stream videos of deep-faked Elon Musk talking about the incident and his supposed affiliation with the Republican Party.
The fake Musk videos invite viewers to join crypto giveaways, directing them to fraudulent websites impersonating Tesla or other Musk-Trump themes. Scanning the QR codes, often positioned near a Donald Trump logo, leads users to these fraudulent sites. The domains used resemble the names of the impersonated brands or associate both Musk’s and Trump’s names.
Bitdefender researchers warn of the scam’s wide impact, noting that the targeted YouTube channels are popular, with subscriber counts ranging from 100,000 to over a million. This wide reach is concerning, as misinformation about Musk’s political affiliations could influence the ongoing presidential campaign. Some channel descriptions even falsely claim that Musk plans to financially support Trump’s presidential campaign.
Bitdefender has identified five malicious domains associated with this scam and has employed anti-phishing and anti-fraud tools to detect and block them. They recommend being cautious of QR codes with too-good-to-be-true crypto offers, scrutinising YouTube channels for suspicious giveaways, and looking for signs like missing or deleted videos and closed comment sections.
