Connect with us

Coin Market

SMS scammers posing as Binance have an even trickier way to fool victims

Published

on

Australian federal police have alerted over 130 people of a new text message scam aimed at crypto users that copies the same “sender ID” as legitimate crypto exchanges such as Binance. 

The impersonation scam involves the fraudsters sending out messages through text and encrypted messaging platforms by impersonating a Binance representative, telling users of a crypto account breach and instructing them to set up a new wallet, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) said in a March 21 statement.

The text messages look real at first glance because they appear in the same legitimate text message thread as Binance communications.

Australia’s federal police say they have found at least 130 people who have been targeted by this scam so far. Source: Australian federal police

“The messages allegedly contained fake verification codes and were often ‘spoofed,’ meaning they appeared in a legitimate existing message thread from the well-known cryptocurrency exchange,” the AFP said.

“A support phone number was also sent, but when the targets called it, they were instructed to protect their accounts by transferring their cryptocurrency to a ‘trust wallet,’ which was controlled by the scammer and allowed the assets to be stolen.”

Online text messaging services allow messages to be sent from a Sender ID, such as a company name, rather than a phone number and can be exploited to spoof text messages, according to a March 1, 2019 report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Once a phone receives the sham communication, it’s reportedly grouped based on the Sender ID, appearing in the same thread as other messages with the same ID. 

The AFP says it conducted an email and text blitz to warn the 130 people they identified who might have been exposed to this scam. 

AFP Commander Cybercrime Operations Graeme Marshall said once the funds are transferred to the thief’s wallet, they are quickly transferred through a network of wallets, making seizure or recovery difficult.

The attack mimics another string of scam messages reported by X users on March 14, where fraudulent emails spoofing Coinbase and Gemini attempted to trick users into setting up a new wallet using pre-generated recovery phrases controlled by scammers.

Related: Australia’s ‘Barefoot Investor’ takes on crypto scammers stealing his likeness

The police said red flags for this type of scam include unsolicited contact from someone claiming to be from Binance about an account breach, pressure to act quickly and prompts for a seed phrase.

Binance Chief Security Officer Jimmy Su said in the AFP statement scammers often impersonate trusted platforms, exploiting certain telecom loopholes to manipulate sender names and phone numbers. 

Su says Binance has a tool to confirm official Binance channels, and if in doubt, “stop and verify through official sources,” such as the contact information on the official website.

Source: Binance Australia

In December last year, the Australian government announced plans for an SMS Sender ID Register and an enforceable industry standard to crack down on similar scams, which have impacted Australian airline Qantas and tech giant Apple in the past. 

Under the standard, telecom companies must determine whether messages sent under a brand name correspond with the legitimate registered sender and submit and provide their legitimate Sender IDs for the register. 

The register is set to launch in late 2025, with a pilot SMS Sender ID Register operating as a stopgap in the meantime, according to Australia’s minister for communications, Michelle Rowland. 

In August last year, the AFP revealed that a total of 382 million Australian dollars ($269 million) had been lost by Australians to investment scams during the previous 12 months, with around 47% of them being crypto-related. 

Magazine: Lazarus Group’s favorite exploit revealed — Crypto hacks analysis

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Coin Market

Market is underestimating how quickly Bitcoin will hit new ATH: Analyst

Published

on

By

Bitcoin will break past its $109,000 all-time high sooner than expected despite recent volatile US macroeconomic conditions, according to a crypto analyst. 

“The market may be underestimating how quickly Bitcoin could surge – potentially hitting new all-time highs before Q2 is out,” Real Vision chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts told Cointelegraph. 

He said this forecast stands regardless of whether or not there is more clarity on US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and potential recession concerns.

Trump’s tariffs blamed for Bitcoin’s recent downtrend

Bitcoin (BTC) fell below $100,000 on Feb. 2, with many market participants blaming the downturn on Trump’s newly imposed tariffs and uncertainty over US interest rates. 

Coutts based his rosy rebound prediction on easing financial conditions, a weakening US dollar and the People’s Bank of China ramping up liquidity since early 2025.

“Financial conditions have eased dramatically this month, highlighted by the US dollar’s third-largest three-day decline since 2015 and significant drops in rates and Treasury bond volatility,” he said.

“Liquidity remains central to investing in all asset classes,” he added.

Bitcoin is down 3.16% over the past 30 days. Source: CoinMarketCap

At the time of publication, Bitcoin is trading at $85,880, down 3.16% over the past month, as per CoinMarketCap data.

Coutts referred to his March 7 X post, where he said that based on the US Dollar Index (DXY) recent moves through a “historical lens,” it makes it hard to be “anything but bullish” about Bitcoin.

Based on historical DXY performance, Coutts said that by June 1, Bitcoin’s 90-day forecast ranges from a worst-case price of $102,000 to a best-case scenario of $123,000. 

Source: Jamie Coutts

The upper target would represent a 13% gain over its current all-time high of $109,000, which it reached on Jan. 20.

BlackRock’s head of digital assets, Robbie Mitchnick, recently said that Bitcoin will most likely thrive in a recessionary macro environment.

“I don’t know if we’ll have a recession or not, but a recession would be a big catalyst for Bitcoin,” Mitchnick said in a March 19 interview with Yahoo Finance.

Related: $16.5B in Bitcoin options expire on Friday — Will BTC price soar above $90K?

It comes at the same time that Bitcoin continues to experience its “least bullish conditions” since January 2023, according to CryptoQuant.

CryptoQuant’s Bull Score Index is at 20, its lowest since January 2023, signaling a weak Bitcoin market with low chances of a strong rally soon. 

Based on historical performance, if the score remains below 40 for an extended period, it could signal continued bearish market conditions, similar to previous bear market phases.

Magazine: Arbitrum co-founder skeptical of move to based and native rollups: Steven Goldfeder

This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.

Continue Reading

Coin Market

Coffeezilla shouldn’t duck Logan Paul suit over CryptoZoo claims: Judge

Published

on

By

Influencer Logan Paul should be allowed to continue a lawsuit accusing the YouTuber known as “Coffeezilla” of making defamatory remarks about Paul’s failed CryptoZoo project, a Texas magistrate judge said.

In a March 26 report filed in a San Antonio federal court, Magistrate Judge Henry Bemporad recommended that federal Judge Orlando Garcia, overseeing the case, deny Stephen Findeisen’s bid to toss Paul’s lawsuit, as Findeisen presented his claims more akin to facts than “mere opinion.”

“At the pleading stage, Plaintiff [Paul] has sufficiently alleged that the statements at issue in this case are reasonably capable of defamatory meaning and are not unactionable opinions,” Bemporad wrote.

“The Court should reject Defendants’ contention that context renders Findeisen’s statements nondefamatory,” he added.

Paul sued Findeisen in June, claiming one of Findeisen’s X posts and two YouTube videos about his CryptoZoo non-fungible token (NFT) project were malicious and caused reputational damage.

CryptoZoo was pinned as a blockchain game where players buy NFT “eggs” that would hatch into animals that could be bred to create unique animals to earn tokens depending on their rarity. The game is yet to materialize.

An example of a CryptoZoo NFT animal that combines a shark and an elephant. Source: CryptoZoo

Paul claimed Findeisen called him “a serial scammer” and that CryptoZoo was a “scam” and a “massive con,” which Paul denied. 

Findeisen asked the court for an early judgment last month, claiming his statements were made to be taken as opinions and his videos had disclaimers in the description section saying as such.

But Bemporad found that “Findeisen’s three statements meet the legal definition of defamatory” and noted that the disclaimers “are not particularly prominent” and are “visible only when the section is expanded.”

“Even if the disclaimers were more prominently on display, however, they would not materially change the factual nature of Findeisen’s assertions,” he added.

Related: Crypto influencer Ben ‘BitBoy’ Armstrong arrested in Florida 

Paul or Findeisen can object to Bemporad’s report within 14 days. Lawyers for Paul and Findeisen did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside of business hours.

Findeisen also released three videos in 2022 on CryptoZoo, which Paul did not bring defamation accusations against but previously threatened to sue over

He later backtracked, apologized, and in January 2023, promised to come up with a plan for CryptoZoo — which came a year later with Paul earmarking $2.3 million for refunds so long as claimants agreed not to sue over the project.

Meanwhile, a group of CryptoZoo buyers sued Paul and others they accused of being involved in the business in a class-action lawsuit, which Paul has asked to have tossed. He has also filed a counter-suit against two business partners he claimed were to blame for CryptoZoo’s failure.

Magazine: Meet lawyer Max Burwick — ‘The ambulance chaser of crypto’ 

Continue Reading

Coin Market

Darkweb actors claim to have over 100K of Gemini, Binance user info

Published

on

By

Darkweb threat actors claim to have hundreds of thousands of user records — including names, passwords and location data — of Gemini and Binance users, putting the apparent lists up for sale on the internet. 

The Dark Web Informer, a Darkweb cyber news site, said in a March 27 blog post that the latest sale is from a threat actor operating under the handle AKM69, who purportedly has an extensive list of private user information from users of crypto exchange Gemini

“The database for sale reportedly includes 100,000 records, each containing full names, emails, phone numbers, and location data of individuals from the United States and a few entries from Singapore and the UK,” the Dark Web Informer said.

Source: Dark Web Informer

“The threat actor categorized the listing as part of a broader campaign of selling consumer data for crypto-related marketing, fraud, or recovery targeting.”

Gemini didn’t immediately respond to Cointelegraph’s request for comment. 

A day earlier, Dark Web Informer said another user, kiki88888, was offering to sell Binance emails and passwords, with the compromised data reportedly containing 132,744 lines of information.

Source: Dark Web Informer

Binance says leaked info came through phishing, not data leak

Speaking to Cointelegraph, Binance said the information on the dark web is not the result of a data leak from the exchange. Instead, it was a hacker who collected data by compromising browser sessions on infected computers using malware.

In a follow-up post, the Dark Web Informer also alluded to the data theft being a result of user’s tech being comprised rather than a leak from Binance, saying, “Some of you really need to stop clicking random stuff.” 

Source: Dark Web Informer

In a similar situation last September, a hacker under the handle FireBear claimed to have a database with 12.8 million records stolen from Binance, with data including last names, first names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdays and residential addresses, according to reports at the time. 

Binance denied the claims, dismissing the hacker’s claim to have sensitive user data as false after an internal investigation from their security team. 

Related: Binance claims code leak on GitHub is ‘outdated,’ poses minor risk

This isn’t the first cyber threat targeting users of major crypto exchanges this month. Australian federal police said on March 21 they had to alert 130 people of a message scam aimed at crypto users that spoofed the same “sender ID” as legitimate crypto exchanges, such as Binance. 

Another similar string of scam messages reported by X users on March 14 spoofed Coinbase and Gemini attempting to trick users into setting up a new wallet using pre-generated recovery phrases controlled by the fraudsters. 

Magazine: Lazarus Group’s favorite exploit revealed — Crypto hacks analysis

Continue Reading

Trending