Metaverse Investors Targeted in New Phishing Scam

Phishing
Hailey Carlson
May 27, 2022

A new phishing scam sees investors in the metaverse being targeted heavily. The metaverse is the term assigned to the digital world where users can invest in things that typically only exist in the real world - i.e. land, real estate, and more - the only catch is that you can only access these things online via the metaverse. Many folks are intrigued by this new frontier and its use of crypto and blockchain, so there are plenty of folks who have already bought land in this world as early adopters. Purchases in the metaverse are primarily made with cryptocurrency; once the investor buys the land in the metaverse, their money from their crypto account is traded from the digital wallet of the cryptocurrency site to the metaverse, where the individual now owns a piece of the blockchain that makes up the metaverse. These individuals are now being targeted by cybercriminals via links that appear to be the correct metaverse links, but are actually fraudulent sites.

The landing page of the fraudulent link looks like the same, legitimate site that users would usually see when logging into the metaverse so they felt comfortable to enter their login credentials into the site. Rather than actually logging into the site, they were typing their login credentials right into the hands of the malicious actors targeting them. These investors ended up losing the land they invested in and the company running said online realm has made it clear that they are not responsible for compensating those who fell victim to the phishing scams. One of the investors lost her $20,000 plot of land next to Snoop Dogg's plot in the multi-verse. In addition to losing their investments, many of these users are trying to protect their linked cryptocurrency accounts from further attack by the malicious actors.

As this new world emerges and gains prevalence, so too will cyber attacks and tricks along with it. If you are interested in investing in something like land in the metaverse or other virtual property, it is important to be careful in order to not fall for a similar scam in the future. These folks were tricked because they clicked on links that looked similar to the legitimate login pages for their metaverse accounts. To avoid such dupes in the future, be sure to only access your online accounts by typing in the addresses yourself. This is a simple way for you to be able to avoid such a scam and be able to access your account with peace of mind.

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