Tl;dr Coinbase has seen a concerning increase in fraudulent cryptocurrency investment platforms that are sourcing victims through connections on dating apps and social media. We are encouraging our users to be vigilant against this type of social engineering scam.
The Coinbase Security team has previously submitted the domains in this blog, in addition to several other related domains, to Google Safe Browsing for alerting users when browsing to these sites.
By Coinbase Global Investigations, Trust & Safety, and Threat Intelligence Teams
Coinbase works closely with law enforcement partners across the globe to protect our customers from an array of targeted cyber attacks. Recently, a noteworthy increase in scams purporting to be foreign exchanges or crypto trading platforms that are spread by scammers who use dating apps to lure victims. While investment scams and romance scams are not unique to the cryptocurrency ecosystem, the irreversible nature of cryptocurrency transactions can make these scams devastating. This scheme is particularly effective because it relies on a scammer building trust with their victim sometimes over a long time period of weeks or months.
The scam typically follows this chain of events:
- Victims are contacted through social media, are matched with the scammer on a dating app, or are contacted on instant messaging applications.
- The scammer encourages the victim to migrate their conversation to an encrypted messaging service, such as WhatsApp or WeChat,…
