While the world is battling to contain the pandemic spread of the deadly disease coronavirus otherwise known as COVID-19, hackers have initiated a new way of scamming people out of the money by cajoling users to invest in bitcoin.
Unlike before and due to the fact that the coronavirus has forced millions of people around the world to stay and work from home, hackers now leverage on this and cajole people start investing in bitcoin and earn thousands while doing basically nothing.
As of now, this new method of scamming people is getting rampant in the UK and it’s just a matter of time before it starts spreading to Africa (If it’s not already happening).
Major Bitcoin countries in Africa are Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Although adoption is slow, it still presents a fallow ground hacker can tap into and scam millions of African out of their hard-earned money.
Bitcoin adoption in Nigeria is now growing exponentially and it can basically be used to carry out some major business transactions now.
The growth of this adoption is really applaudable but what happens when people start getting scammed on a larger scale?
This will definitely cripple the growth of Bitcoin adoption in Nigeria and this might have an effect on technological development in the country.
It is therefore highly essential that you understand how these scammers work and try to be well equipped and avoid them.
Here is basically how this scam work
The first step is this, scammers aggregate thousands of email addresses and start sending a non-stop drip-feed of emails from many different addresses, once every day with the same label of “coronavirus positives.”
Once a user replies to the email and signifies his/her interest, the user will be given access to a trading platform after which a large amount of money will be deposited into the user’s wallet.
Now, here is where it became more dangerous.
A pseudo investment manager will contact you and tell you that to access the money in your wallet, an initial amount that will serve as a commission needs to be paid.
Immediately you pay the amount requested, the system will automatically lock you out and that is the end.
Some of the emails carry subject lines such as “Don’t just stay at home because of COVID-19 doing nothing!! Start earning thousands on Bitcoins, Make more money in a day trading Bitcoin, etc.
It is highly essential that you are vigilant and watch out for this new trick employed by hackers.
Stay safe and stay home.
Featured Image: blockchain.news
