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Researchers discovered a new massive investment fraud scam network called Digital Smoke, with an ongoing operation targeting everyone. A new report warns people about this scam since this operation has already cost millions of individuals more than $3 billion last year.
Unfortunately, more and more people are getting scammed by this campaign despite the efforts of numerous experts in spreading awareness. A study showed that the primary targets of this fraud campaign are unsuspecting victims globally.
The Digital Smoke campaign has already inflicted damage to every continent worldwide.
According to investigations, Digital Smoke has defrauded millions of users from the United States, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, China, India, Colombia, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, Canada, Saudi Arabia, and European countries.
The researchers explained that the scam operators spoofed Fortune 100 organisations from the United States and the United Kingdom. The confirmed firms impersonated by the actors are Baxter Medical, Lloyds Bank, ABRDN, and Eaton Corporation.
Most scheme cases have a subject relevant to financial services, oil & gas, EV batteries, healthcare, renewable energy, semiconductors, and investment corporations.
Research revealed that the Digital Smoke operators baited their targets into investing in non-existent products and investment plans that Fortune-100 companies and state-owned organisations back.
In addition, the scammers set up an extensive network of web resources and mobile apps. The fraudsters host these resources on bulletproof hosting solutions and jurisdictions that are hard to access for takedowns.
In December last year, threat analysts identified more than 350 hosts with thousands of domains used by the actors for obfuscation, payment gateway protection, and hidden redirects.
The threat actors used AliPay, UPI, and crypto to collect payments from their targets, enabling them to have flexibility in processing funds.
These incidents are a reminder that there is still a looming threat of investment scams that currently target unsuspecting victims. Hence, every individual should take precautionary measures before engaging in investments.
Experts explained that users should avoid unwanted investment offers that suddenly contact them. Users should consult financial advisors to verify the authenticity of the offered investment opportunity.
