Analysts of Group-IB Company which specializes in cyber-security revealed more than 50 schemes of fake investment projects and more than 8 thousand domains connected with fraudulent infrastructure.
Fraudsters offer those who want to get rich quick to invest in cryptocurrencies, buying stocks of oil and gas companies, gold, pharmaceuticals, and other assets. Such schemes have been recorded by experts since at least 2016, but they became widespread in 2018-2020. Moreover, in the last nine months, there have been 163% more domains registered for fake investment projects than in all previous years.
CERT-GIB's 24/7 Cyber Incident Response Center has identified over 50 templates of landing pages with a variety of ready-made investment scenarios about how to invest money to "get rich quick without much effort."
Scammers illegally copied the style of popular news resources, such as Russia 24, RT, and RBC, to design their websites.
According to the Group-IB report, "as soon as a novice investor takes the "bait," he is directed to a survey site from a "well-known bank." As a rule, all of them are associated with trading in "crypto", fiat currencies, precious metals, minerals, natural resources, pharmaceuticals. Almost every project promises fantastic earnings - from 300 thousand to 10 million rubles per month".
Scammers ensure that the victim leaves his contact details. After that, a "personal consultant" calls the victim back, who offers to register in the system to make a profit. But for this victim needs to make a deposit of $250 or more.
Then the "investor" is shown his personal account in the system with the profit figures and trading results. However, these figures are "drawn", it is impossible to withdraw virtual money.
The "personal consultant" also asks the victim for bank card details and allegedly sends a request to the bank for approval of the deposit. In fact, the money is simply debited from the account.
In December, Group-IB experts estimated that monthly user losses from targeted fraud through surveys and sweepstakes worldwide amounted to $80 million.
