Ilon Musk and crypto-fraud: YouTube has a new scammer's tactic

Yesterday, 23 June, a five-hour live stream was discovered on YouTube that used a dipfake Ilon Musk video to promote a cryptocurrency scam. The video, which has now been removed, showed Musk allegedly at a Tesla event, urging viewers to visit a dodgy website and deposit their bitcoins, Ethereum or Dogecoin there, promising a refund of double the amount.

Here's What We Know

At its peak, the broadcast was watched by more than 30,000 people, although it is possible that these numbers were inflated by bots. The channel posing as Tesla had an official verification badge, indicating that the account may have been hacked. After our Engadget colleagues contacted Google, both the video and the channel were removed.

Such scams using Musk's dipfakes have become more frequent in recent months. In each case, the scammers used accounts posing as Musk's companies. Earlier in June, similar scams organised by 35 accounts posing as SpaceX during the Starship launch were reported. In April, scammers tried to capitalise on the hype surrounding the eclipse using the same tactics. There have also been reports of similar fake broadcasts on Reddit.

Social media scams targeting Musk's followers have been a problem for years, as has celebrity fraud in general. It was reported the other day that 50 Cent experienced a hack on his social media accounts that resulted in his accounts being used for a pump-and-dump scheme.

Source: Engadget