Elon Musk- and Tesla-themed Bitcoin scams seek to lure victims
A favorite tactic of scammers is to invoke the name of a celebrity to get people to fall for their schemes. It's no surprise then that, given his known enthusiasm for cryptocurrencies, Tesla supremo Elon Musk's name often comes up.
Researchers at Bitdefender Antispam Lab have spotted two spam campaigns this month both seeking to cash in on Musk and Tesla's high profile in the cryptocurrency world.
The first, starting on May 15, offers recipients the chance to participate in a Bitcoin giveaway allegedly organized by the marketing department at Tesla. The emails have a PDF attachment which -- perhaps surprisingly -- doesn't have malicious content but just contains instructions on how to claim the 'free' Bitcoin.
The second campaign focuses on the acquisition of $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin by Tesla earlier this year, by claiming that half of it is to be given away. The scammers have been quite creative with this one, providing a handy QR code to make getting scammed simpler and even a set of 'rules' for taking part to make the message seem more legitimate.
Of course in both cases they want you to send them some Bitcoin on the promise of receiving a larger amount back. At the time of the report it seems to be working as one of the crypto wallets used by the perpetrators showed 31 transactions amounting to over $1,900.
You can read more and see screen shots of the scams on the Bitdefender blog.
Image credit: Ihor Bondarenko / Shutterstock