Researchers from Malwarebytes have uncovered a large campaign impersonating news websites, such as those from CNN, BBC, CNBC, News24, and ABC News to promote investment scam:
Here’s how the scam works:
- The scammers buy ads on Google and Facebook, which follow a similar pattern along the lines of “Shocking: [Local Celebrity] backs new passive income stream for citizens!”
- If you click the link, you’ll be taken to a website that look like one of the major news outlets, and which will tell you about a breakthrough investment strategy.
- The article will encourage you to sign up for a program that will earn you money without having to lift a finger. You sign up by providing your name, email address, and phone number.
- A friendly advisor (scammer) calls you about the opportunity, referencing the article and explaining how it all works.
- You’ll be told that to start off you’ll have to make a small deposit (around $240) and then you will see your investment grow (on the fake trading platform).
- Your friendly advisor urges you to invest more to increase your return. And it keeps on growing, until you want to cash in when you’ll find there’s extra fees to pay, problems with account verifications, and all sorts of delays.
- When it dawns on you that you’ve been had, your entire investment and all the fees you paid are gone. Also gone is your friendly advisor who has sold your details to another scammer, to squeeze the last dollars out of the ordeal.
Erich Kron, Security Awareness Advocate at KnowBe4, commented:
“Trust is a big factor when deciding where to invest your hard-earned money, so bad actors work hard to find ways to trick us into believing what they offer is legitimate. The use of well-known and trusted national or global brands to promote their schemes is certainly a part of this, but they are also able to mimic local celebrities and then, using the targeted power of advertising on places like social media or Google, can really change the game.
“The advancement of tools such as AI for doing automated research into trusted people in local communities, then creating deepfakes using their likeness has really made this a serious threat. They will commonly fake investment sites that show huge returns on investments that you have made through them but are in reality just designed to get you to keep pumping money into these fictitious investments. A person may test the waters with $100, see that they’ve made $1000 from that, and be convinced into putting thousands more into the investment, only realizing it’s gone south when they try to get their money.
“It’s important for people to do research on any investments they are considering, and to carefully check the URLs of any websites they may consider investing with, and doing some research related to the investments they are pushing. Education is critical for people to avoid falling victim to these very crafty attackers.”
I tell people who ask me about how to avoid scams to treat everything and everyone with suspicion. That’s because scams have become so dangerous, you need a certain amount of paranoia to stay safe. And as Andy Grove wrote, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not chasing you.
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This entry was posted on July 16, 2025 at 8:40 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Malwarebytes, Scam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Hackers Impersonate CNN, BBC Sites to Promote Investment Scams
Researchers from Malwarebytes have uncovered a large campaign impersonating news websites, such as those from CNN, BBC, CNBC, News24, and ABC News to promote investment scam:
Here’s how the scam works:
Erich Kron, Security Awareness Advocate at KnowBe4, commented:
“Trust is a big factor when deciding where to invest your hard-earned money, so bad actors work hard to find ways to trick us into believing what they offer is legitimate. The use of well-known and trusted national or global brands to promote their schemes is certainly a part of this, but they are also able to mimic local celebrities and then, using the targeted power of advertising on places like social media or Google, can really change the game.
“The advancement of tools such as AI for doing automated research into trusted people in local communities, then creating deepfakes using their likeness has really made this a serious threat. They will commonly fake investment sites that show huge returns on investments that you have made through them but are in reality just designed to get you to keep pumping money into these fictitious investments. A person may test the waters with $100, see that they’ve made $1000 from that, and be convinced into putting thousands more into the investment, only realizing it’s gone south when they try to get their money.
“It’s important for people to do research on any investments they are considering, and to carefully check the URLs of any websites they may consider investing with, and doing some research related to the investments they are pushing. Education is critical for people to avoid falling victim to these very crafty attackers.”
I tell people who ask me about how to avoid scams to treat everything and everyone with suspicion. That’s because scams have become so dangerous, you need a certain amount of paranoia to stay safe. And as Andy Grove wrote, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that they’re not chasing you.
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This entry was posted on July 16, 2025 at 8:40 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Malwarebytes, Scam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.