The South Korean television series Squid Game is a global success, proposed all over the world on the Netflix streaming platform, has climbed the ratings ratings all over the world coming to be in first place among the most viewed series in many countries. This popularity has not gone unnoticed by cybercriminals who in different ways are trying to benefit from it, as happened in the past for events of interest to large audiences of online users.
Today I would like to talk to you about some examples that demonstrate how criminals can exploit the popularity of the series for illegal activities. The first news is that a few hours ago the operators behind a fledgling cryptocurrency named Squid Game (SQUID) committed an investor scam worth approximately $ 2.1 million. The Squid Game cryptocurrency was launched just a week ago and as reported by the Gizmodo website it seems to have been conceived with the sole intent of defrauding investors.
According to Gizmodo, the reports that we were faced with a fraud were different, from a poorly structured website advertising the cryptocurrency to the ban on the sale of the cryptocurrency Squid Game, at least at this stage. Here, then, that the operators behind the cryptocurrency Squid Game have disappeared and with them the money of the investors. Below is the chart showing the value of the cryptocurrency zeroes out after reaching a price of $ 2,861 in just 7 days.
Gizmodo reports that the website is no longer reachable as well as the social accounts used to advertise the new cryptocurrency. It goes without saying that investors’ money is probably lost forever.
“Does this mean you can’t make money trading cryptocurrencies? Of course there are many people who make real money selling cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or even less popular coins like Shiba Inu, whose value has recently skyrocketed. But just because people make money today doesn’t mean it will last forever. Cryptocurrency will only survive if people believe it is real money. And that feeling can change from day to day. ” reports GizModo.
“If you are planning to buy cryptocurrencies, the most important thing to watch out for is not necessarily the price. First, find out if you can sell the coin after purchasing it. If you can’t sell, as people who invested in SQUID have discovered, it doesn’t matter how high the price is, as well as how big the number someone writes on Monopoly tickets. Cryptocurrency is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. And if the rules say you can’t even sell, you’ve just been scammed. I’m sorry for you.”
The above is just an example of how to exploit the popularity of the famous series for criminal purposes. We also have news of malicious Squid Game-themed applications used to infect the systems of unsuspecting victims or of social engineering attacks that exploit interest in the series and its anticipated sequel to trick network users into downloading files that actually install malware. on victim systems. An application was recently found on the official Google Play store advertised as a Squid game themed wallpaper that actually infects users’ devices with a well-known Android malware, the Joker malware, once installed.
The app had at least 5,000 downloads at the time of Google’s removal from the store. To better understand the popularity of the Squid Game theme, just know that there are already over 200 applications of various kinds, all legitimate, in the Google Store. one of these applications has already reached 1 million installations, it is easy to imagine what could happen if a malicious app were left on the store for the time necessary to be downloaded by hundreds of thousands of users.
We close this quick roundup with Squid game-themed phishing campaigns that have affected users all over the world in these hours. The malicious e-mails have targeted Squid Game fans by advertising costumes of its characters to buy online or inviting them to play the games offered in the series online. “It was only a matter of time before Squid Game became a successful new lure. As with any other trending topic, cybercriminals know how to exploit them. In fact, we detect many phishing pages every day offering to purchase costumes from the series or inviting users to play the show’s games online. Of course, victims end up losing data, money and installing malware on their devices. It is very important that users always check the authenticity of the websites they visit to stream series or to purchase merchandise. ” Explains Anton V. Ivanov, Security Expert di Kaspersky.
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