Kaspersky Identifies How Crypto Scam Artistes Now Target Their Victims with Bait Seed Phrases

Cybersecurity outfit Kaspersky warns of new crypto scam making the rounds on YouTube. From protocols to project founders and individual retail investors, bad actors have spared no one in their pursuit to rip off crypto market participants. In the latest instance, these bad actors appear to be targeting even their fellow thieves. A Honey Trap of Sorts? Prominent cybersecurity outfit Kaspersky has warned of a new crypto scam mainly making the rounds on YouTube. As highlighted by the security outfit, the latest scam is unique as the scammers appear to be targeting fellow unscrupulous elements. The scammers target their victims by pretending to be helpless crypto novices in YouTube comments. The scammer shares their wallet seed phrases, claiming to have USDT in their wallet but not knowing how to transfer it. 

Theoretically, this sounds like the easiest score ever for any aspiring thief or nefarious passerby, especially when they use the seed phrases to open the wallet and find about 8,000 USDT on the Tron network for the taking, needing only a few dollars in TRX tokens for fees, as seen by Kaspersky in one instance. 

There is a catch, however. The wallet in question is a multi-signature wallet that requires permission from two or more other wallets to send transactions. So when the wannabe thieves turned victims send TRX to the account for gas fees, they will likely find that they can still not move the USDT. But before they might even be able to come to this conclusion, they find that the TRX they sent is immediately sent out to another wallet, the scammer's wallet. The latest scam brings to mind the honey trap, a technique used to siphon information from a victim by manipulating their sexual or romantic desire. In this case, however, scammers are banking on human greed. As highlighted by Kaspersky, regular crypto investors can easily stay safe from this scam by not trying to access other people's crypto wallets.