London Police Thwart 43 Crypto Phishing Websites

Efforts by London law enforcement have successfully intercepted 43 fraudulent websites aimed at deceiving unsuspecting individuals. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), a specialized unit within the United Kingdom's police force dedicated to scrutinizing financial fraud and cybercrimes, took swift action against these nefarious schemes.

In an announcement made by Pete O'Doherty, acting commissioner of the City of London Police, it was revealed that a deceptive email address pretending to be from blockchain.com, a leading cryptocurrency platform, had been discovered. Further investigations uncovered an additional 42 illicit websites, including "actionfraud.info" and "department-fraud.com." These domains were promptly disabled by law enforcement authorities upon identification.

The NFIB emphasizes the importance of promptly reporting incidents of cybercrime victimization through official channels and their hotline. Notably, they reported removing nearly 300,000 malicious websites from circulation as of December 2023. Among the deceptive tactics employed are schemes like falsely claiming recipients as winners of various prizes, including Tupperware sets.

Cybersecurity threats persist within the cryptocurrency community. In a recent breach disclosed on January 20, hardware wallet manufacturer Trezor acknowledged compromised data belonging to 66,000 users. Subsequently, at least 41 users reported receiving phishing emails requesting sensitive information to compromise their crypto wallets.

Moreover, a widespread phishing campaign targeted numerous crypto investors' email accounts. On January 23, the crypto community identified a fraudulent scheme impersonating major Web3 companies. These impostors circulated emails promoting fabricated token airdrops under the guise of reputable entities such as Cointelegraph, WalletConnect, and Token Terminal.

This phishing expedition was traced back to a security lapse at email marketing firm MailerLite. On January 24, the company disclosed that hackers exploited a social engineering ploy to infiltrate Web3 accounts. A MailerLite staff member inadvertently accessed a fraudulent Google sign-in page while responding to a customer inquiry, unwittingly granting intruders access to the admin panel. Nansen, a blockchain analytics firm, estimates that the attackers amassed at least $3.3 million in total inflows from their primary wallet since executing the attack.