December 21, 2023 at 04:15AM
Cryptocurrency scammers are exploiting a Twitter “feature” to create deceptive URLs that appear to belong to legitimate accounts, redirecting users to unrelated posts promoting crypto scams, fake giveaways, and fraudulent channels. This technique targets high-profile accounts and could potentially lead to theft of crypto assets and NFTs. Users are advised to be cautious when clicking on Twitter links to avoid falling victim to these scams.
It seems that cryptocurrency scammers have found a way to abuse a Twitter feature to promote scams, fake giveaways, and fraudulent Telegram channels used to steal crypto and NFTs. They are creating URLs that look like they belong to legitimate, well-known organizations in the crypto space, such as Binance, Ethereum Foundation, zkSync, and Chainlink, but instead redirect to unrelated users’ tweets promoting crypto scams. The fake tweets range from promoting fake crypto giveaways to websites that drain wallets and Discord channels promoting pump-and-dumps.
The scammers are utilizing a redirect mechanism on Twitter which allows them to modify the account name in a tweet’s URL to appear legitimate, even when it’s associated with high-profile accounts. Although it is possible to filter out some of these scam tweets by enabling the Quality Filter in Twitter settings, there is still a risk of legitimate tweets being filtered incorrectly.
It is advised that users should be cautious when opening Twitter links, particularly on mobile, where the app may not show an address bar. This could lead to confusion and make scam tweets appear more legitimate. It’s also important to note that, as this redirect is a standard feature of Twitter, it is unlikely to be changed to make it more secure. Therefore, it is recommended to quickly check the address bar when clicking on a Twitter link to ensure that the redirect has not taken place.