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There have been many different ways to steal funds from individuals in the cryptocurrency market. However, a new methodology has been applied in Hong Kong and other countries such as the United States. According to a recent report released by the South China Morning Post, businessmen in Hong Kong are being targeted by criminals that want to steal Bitcoin from them.
These scammers try to steal Bitcoins from victims by threatening them that they will receive a bomb if they don’t send Bitcoins in the time span the scammers provide.
One of the affected individuals is Michael Gazeley, the CEO of Network Box. He received a message in his business email with this Bitcoin bomb threat. Furthermore, he said that he had to pay $20,000 if he wanted to avoid receiving a bomb in his office.
Gazeley said to the news outlet:
“This looks like the third wave of blackmail emails plaguing the world in the past few years… I have never seen something like this, which sounds like cyberterrorism, in my 20-year career in cybersecurity.”
Nevertheless, he was 99.99% sure that the message was not worth. Indeed, he mentioned that the email had some typo mistakes and the grammar used was not exactly good. That shows that the main intention is to take a few bucks from some individuals rather than really bombing an office.
Hong Kong authorities did not provide further information about this issue, thus it is not possible to know the exact number of companies affected by these threats.
This is not the first time that there are Bitcoin bomb threats around the world. A few days ago, as reported by NBC New York. Hoax bomb threats spread asking users to pay in Bitcoin. The New York Police Department (NYPD) informed on Twitter that there was an email circulating that contained a threat asking for a Bitcoin payment. However, they say that they did not find any devices in some of the places where the threat arrived.
Please be advised – there is an email being circulated containing a bomb threat asking for bitcoin payment. While this email has been sent to numerous locations, searches have been conducted and NO DEVICES have been found. pic.twitter.com/7omOs13Z7Q
— NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) December 13, 2018
The NYPD went on explaining that the threats are meant to cause disruption and/or obtain money in a fast way. Although the police will be responding to the calls made by the community, they believe that the threats are likely ‘not credible.’
This is not the first time that there are scammers trying to steal Bitcoin and other virtual currencies from users. Earlier this year, scammers on Twitter were asking for Bitcoin and ETH deposits using fake accounts that stole famous people’s identities.
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