Elon Musk deep fakes promote new cryptocurrency scam

[Gandalf_The_Grey]

Content source

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/elon-musk-deep-fakes-promote-new-cryptocurrency-scam/

Cryptocurrency scammers are using deep fake videos of Elon Musk and other prominent cryptocurrency advocates to promote a BitVex trading platform scam that steals deposited currency.

This fake BitVex cryptocurrency trading platform claims to be owned by Elon Musk, who created the site to allow everyone to earn up to 30% returns on their crypto deposits.

This scam campaign started earlier this month with threat actors creating or hacking existing YouTube accounts to host deep fake videos of Elon Musk, Cathie Wood, Brad Garlinghouse, Michael Saylor, and Charles Hoskinson.

These videos are legitimate interviews modified with deep fake technology to use the person's voice in a script provided by the threat actors.

An example of one of the scam videos can be seen below, where Elon promotes the new scam site and says he invested $50 million into the platform.

However, if you look carefully, you will see that the deep fake synchronizes the person's talking to the threat actor's script, which is so silly as to be comical.

(Read the source article for the scam video)

While it may be hard to believe that people would fall for these scams, fake cryptocurrency giveaways and investment schemes are known to generate millions of dollars for threat actors.

In January 2021, a fake Elon Musk crypto giveaway scam earned $580k in just one week.

Even more recently, an Ark Invest-themed scam promoted on YouTube stole $1.3 million by just re-streaming an edited version of an old live panel discussion on cryptocurrency with Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, and Cathie Wood of Ark Invest.

These scams have gotten so pervasive and profitable that the FTC released a report warning that $80 million has been lost to cryptocurrency investment scams since October 2020.

Therefore, it is essential to recognize that almost every crypto giveaway site is a scam, especially those allegedly from Elon Musk, Tesla, SpaceX, Ark Invest, and Gemini that promise massive returns.

If you see emails, tweets, videos, or other messages on social media promoting these types of giveaways, remember that any cryptocurrency you send will not produce anything in return.