Unfortunately, scammers lured Apple fans to watch a fake iPhone 13 event and stole Bitcoin worth $69,000 from them. The fraud included a fake event ‘California streaming’ event, a fake Apple website, and a fake offer to double their Bitcoin. Such ‘double your money’ scamming offers are marketed over the phone, on the web, or in person are to steal from naive individuals.
The sophisticated iPhone 13 event scam promised 2X in return
Zscaler spotted the fake iPhone 13 event which was streaming Tim Cook’s older interviews and had a re-direct link to ‘special event’ and a Bitcoin promotional offer.
We observed a similar tactic during the iPhone 13 launch event. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this was an online launch event and was broadcasted live on the official Apple Youtube channel. But, there were few Youtube channels that were claiming to stream this event live. While observing one such channel, we saw promotional news with the following title:
“Special Event for you taking place NOW: www.2021apple.org”
The fraudulent YouTube channel had 16,000 viewers and 1.3M subscribers to appear legitimate. And upon clicking the redirected link, viewers were asked to select either Bitcoin or Ethereum cryptocurrency and were shown the fake offer next which showed them an easy to double the sent Bitcoin, between 0.1 BTC and 20 BTC.
Once a user clicks on any of the buttons, it redirects to a page promoting Apple’s venture in CryptoCurrency and a giveaway of 1000 Bitcoins.The theme of the site and color combination is also consistent with the official Apple site, designed to deceive the visitors into believing it was the official Apple website.
Through this sham, unsuspecting fans lost bitcoin worth $69,0000. Kindly be aware of such fake promotions.
This wallet has received 1.48299884 bitcoins till now (worth around $69K). Currently, the site is taken down, and we believe it to be a short-lived attack. The huge sum collected in the bitcoin wallet in such a short period of time shows a sophisticated and highly successful attempt by the scammers.
