The Facebook imposters are trying to cheat users with Bitcoin

At the beginning of this month, some Facebook users noticed something strange: Bitmain, the mining company Bitmain, seemed to be present in the comments of one of its posts, advertising a sort of "partnership" linked to bitcoin and requesting a cryptocurrency transfer. The post was suspect; some wondered if the company had been hacked.

But the post was not from Bitmain, the company explained in a follow-up comment on Facebook. Instead, an expert impersonator had created a fake account, then commented on a legitimate business thread, trying to lure users into sending bitcoins. "There are many users who create fake accounts with our profile picture and enter the same name as Bitmain," the company wrote in a comment on Facebook. "We always disassembled them, but new ones always come out." Users with pages like Bitmain rely on reporting content on Facebook and then wait for the company to break them down. In this case it is not clear how long the posts were visible. (Bitmain declined to comment).

The scheme has also affected others on Facebook. This week, an imitating account The Verge he was doing the same height in Facebook's comments. "We are thrilled to collaborate with Bitcoin," read the comment, which used a language similar to Bitmain's proposal. The comment said to offer a gift in exchange for a small amount of bitcoins to "verify your address".

Facebook's comments are an example of a scheme that has so far been widely praised on Twitter. The most famous thing, on this platform, users who imitate Elon Musk have joined the Tesla CEO's discussions as a way to attract users into such traps. This ploy has become particularly sophisticated recently, as scammers have hijacked legitimate accounts verified by Twitter and then used them as vehicles to solicit bitcoins. A wave of hack has even trapped the Google G Suite Twitter account.

The scheme is extremely simple, although it is difficult to say how effective it is. At first glance, it is not always easy to find out immediately if a comment comes from the account that is presumed to be. Then again, if a user is technically sophisticated enough to create a bitcoin wallet, will he still fall for a fairly rudimentary scam?

Many scammers, at least, seem to bet that the answer is yes. While it is easy to find the Twitter accounts that make those posts, more limited search functions make it difficult to find out who could post fraudulent comments on Facebook, and it is not clear exactly how widespread the problem is. But the company is hardly immune to the accounts of impotence. At the start of this year, The New York Times he highlighted how the scammers posed as Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg on Facebook to defraud users from money.

In response to Times & # 39; survey, a Facebook spokesman said the platform was trying to "improve" to address the problem. While the company seems to remove posts when they are reported, it is unclear exactly what security measures have been applied by Facebook to detect fraudulent accounts or if the company provides further verification for the verified pages. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Bitcoin, which has become a favorite currency in online scams, has also presented other problems for Facebook. At the start of this year the company stated that it would no longer allow cryptocurrency ads on its platform, since many were not "operating in good faith". Facebook has largely reversed this ban later, but the company has still faced criticism of its handling of the problem. Last month, some observers noted that the messages sponsored on Facebook were used to obtain sensitive information by promoting a cryptocurrency that did not exist.

"Bitmain would like to remind everyone to be cautious because of the many fake accounts that are trying to scam online users," the company wrote on its Facebook page yesterday, publishing an "infographic" on how to identify fraudulent accounts. "Take some time to go over the information to avoid scams."