Sophos, a cybersecurity company, found out that CryptoRom scammers are getting better at what they do by adding AI chat tools like ChatGPT to their collection of tools to scam iPhone and Android users.
Sophos’s latest report, “Sha Zhu Pan Scam Uses AI Chat Tool to Target iPhone and Android Users,” says that the crooks are also telling victims that their cryptocurrency accounts have been hacked and that they need to pay more money up front.
According to the report, Sophos X-Ops has found that since May, scammers have been able to sneak seven new fake cryptocurrency investing apps into the official Apple App and Google Play stores. This means that the number of people who could be scammed has gone up.
It said that in 2022, investment fraud caused the most money loss of any scam reported to the US FBI’s Internet Crimes Complaint Centre (IC3) by the public. In the US alone, US$3.31 billion was lost because of investment fraud.
Most of these scams involved cryptocurrency, like pig butchering, and recorded losses went up 183% from 2021 to last year, to US$2.57 billion.
Read also: Fraudsters reveal alarming Cyber Security flaws in Nigerian banks
OpenAI’s ChatGPT as a tool in CryptoRom
Sean Gallagher, a principal threat researcher at Sophos, commented on the company’s findings:
Since OpenAI announced that ChatGPT would be released, there has been a lot of worry that hackers might use it to do bad things. We can now say for sure that this is happening, at least when it comes to pig-killing scams.
“One of the hardest things for con artists to do with CryptoRom schemes is to have believable, ongoing romantic conversations with their targets. These chats are usually written by “keyboarders,” who are mostly from Asia and have trouble communicating in English.
“Using ChatGPT can make scams less laborious and more authentic by keeping these conversations going. It also lets keyboarders interact with several victims simultaneously.”
Sophos X-Ops discovered a new scam.
Traditionally, when victims of CryptoRom scams attempt to cash in on their “profits,” fraudsters may inform them about a 20% tax requirement on their funds before completing any withdrawals. However, it’s important to stay positive and be cautious in such situations.
“However, a recent victim shared that despite initially paying the “tax” to withdraw money, the fraudsters assured them that the funds had been “hacked” and they would soon receive the funds after making an additional 20% deposit,” he said.
After additional examination, Sophos X-Ops uncovered seven phoney cryptocurrency investment apps in the official Google Play and Apple App stores.