Trump Campaign, MAGA Supporters Targeted By Crypto Fraudsters
Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential campaign and his MAGA supporters were targeted in several new crypto scams, a June 17 report by cybercrime disruption firm Netcraft revealed.
The report states that the Trump campaign was targeted by fraudsters after the former U.S. president announced he would accept digital asset donations on May 21.
This was followed by a surge in real donations after his “hush money” trial conviction on May 31, overwhelming the campaign’s infrastructure.
After Donald Trump’s campaign announced it would accept cryptocurrency, the operators of a host of fraudulent websites have sought to hustle his supporters. https://t.co/5QEuUrgiZs
— WIRED (@WIRED) June 18, 2024
“Following these events, Netcraft has identified donation scams impersonating the Trump campaign, featuring dozens of malicious domains distributed in phishing and smishing campaigns,” the report reads. “With millions of emails and texts sent by the real campaign, scammers are exploiting recent interest to trick would-be donors into visiting a lookalike domain.”
The report further states that fraudulent crypto actors are rapidly adapting, using phishing payment systems that impersonate Coingate, as well as manipulating digital asset flows through platforms like Oxaplay and Plisio to steal funds.
In one instance, one such scam even went so far as to utilize A.I. based peer-to-peer messaging to make their scheme appear more legitimate to potential victims.
“This campaign reinforces the observation that criminals operating donation scams are quick to make use of current affairs to steal money from would-be donors and have no qualms about who or what they impersonate,” Netcraft highlights, noting that similar scams have arisen in
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