As we are in the 2021 holiday shopping season, there’s a new scam you need to be aware of and watch out for: offers for Amazon Tokens. We have found that these new scams are very effective, yielding over USD $100,000. Over 300 Avast users have been protected from the scam in the past week.
These offers are propagating through malicious advertisements that imitate legitimate news sites and rely on rumors that have been around since July 2021 that Amazon will be offering Tokens for sale. Below are samples of the malicious advertisements that we found.
The rumors originated from news stories reporting that Amazon could be entering the cryptocurrency market and creating their own tokens as part of that. These stories relied on speculation from an Amazon job posting in July 2021. The rumor has not been substantiated, and there are no Amazon Tokens currently for sale.
These malicious advertisements rely on people’s trust in the Amazon brand and desire to get in early on cryptocurrency initial coin offerings (ICOs). Getting in on an ICO early can be an easy way to quickly make money, as ICOs often rapidly increase in value in the early days.
Once someone clicks on one of these malicious ads, they are redirected to a well-constructed website that appears to be promoting Amazon’s new (nonexistent) Token cryptocurrency. However, upon closer investigation, you may notice occasional spelling mistakes on these sites, which is an early tip off that these aren’t legitimate.
The website is well-presented, with detailed explanations, nice images, and full functionality. The website even cleverly connects the purchase of the noexistent token with free Amazon Prime membership, making it seem even more legitimate.
The attackers behind this scam also cleverly tie the purchase of these nonexistent tokens to Amazon’s Prime Gaming service, meant to appeal to gamers.
There is a countdown on the website and sales and bonuses if the user decides to purchase…
