For our crypto-investor friends out there, it’s important to keep tabs on crypto-scammers’ activities too — with that in mind, here’s what we’ve found at Trend Micro this week.

Beeple x Louis Vuitton Giveaway Scam

Beeple is the alias of NFT artist, Michael Joseph Winkelmann. On Sunday 22^nd, the artist’s Twitter account was taken over by hackers who proceeded to post malicious phishing messages. A fake giveaway raffle was advertised with an entry fee of 1 Ethereum (worth $1968.50).

Phishing links took victims to what was supposedly on offer: a series of new NFT works made in collaboration with luxury fashion house, Louis Vuitton. Earlier this month, Beeple had indeed designed 30 NFTs for the brand — no doubt lending some credibility for the netizens who were duped.

Although the hackers had control for only five hours before the real Beeple posted a warning, this was enough time for them to make over $400,000. The first tweet made the attackers approximately $73,000 USD while the second saw around $365,000 in crypto exchange hands. As the man himself says, if it’s too good to be true. . .

Flare Token Presale Scam

A number of Discord servers associated with Flare Network, a much-anticipated blockchain, have been under attack by scammers. It was reported that 96 bot accounts entered Discord and started promoting a fake Flare token presale. Scammers cynically announced that Discord community members would be uniquely eligible — and that the campaign would last for a few days only.

Discord administrators subsequently removed all involved scammers from the network and reiterated that there was no presale.

Besides, we’ve also detected fake text messages about the presale. Below is an example:

” Hi, you are one of the chosen few. your wallet is award list, and you’re in for some exciting times ahead! your wait is finally over! $flr community round private token sale is live now. :link: hxxps://flare-whitelist[.]sale
we are forever grateful for your support, as we would be nothing without you. so, to show our appreciation, we’re having a community sale! remember, it only belongs to the community supporters in this group. do you know what’s even more enjoyable? you don’t need to go through a rigorous process of kyc, and there’s no lock-up period. public information
•price: 50000 flr=0.1eth
•min: 0.1 eth
•max: 2 eth flr will be allocated to your address in proportion, and you can expect to receive a hefty share of the pie soon after interaction with our smart contract. mobile users should use metamask’s built-in browser to avoid any problems. note: it’s the first come-first served round and will be closed once filled. onl

The attached link will take you to a fake website that prompts you to connect your crypto wallet to attend Flare token presale – don’t fall for it! Once you did, scammers can gain access to it and transfer every bit away. You could end up losing both your crypto assets and other credentials. Watch out!

Protect Yourself with Trend Micro Check

• Double-check people’s contact details — and URLs.
• Reach out to official websites and support pages directly for help if in doubt.
• NEVER use links or buttons from unknown sources! Use Trend Micro Check to detect scams with ease: Trend Micro Check is an all-in-one browser extension and mobile app for detecting scams, phishing attacks, malware, and dangerous links — and it’s FREE!

Check out this page for more information on Trend Micro Check.

For smartphones (where much crypto trading takes place) we’d recommend Trend Micro Mobile Security. Its cloud-based Smart Protection Network™ and Mobile App Reputation technology will stop threats before they even reach you.

If you’d like to read more, you can visit our dedicated cryptocurrency news page. Finally, if you’ve found this article to be a helpful and/or interesting read, please do SHARE with friends and family to help keep the online community secure and protected.