Crypto scam by Elon Musk promoted through Twitter lists

Do you want to give Elon Musk a following on Twitter? Scammers might shortlist you to try and defraud Elon.

Musk’s new followers will be added to the “Deal Of The Year” Twitter list. This lures them to deposit small amounts of crypto into attackers wallets with false promises of receiving up to 5 000 Bitcoin.

Fake Elon: “1000 New Followers” get “5000 BTC.”

BleepingComputer discovered that Twitter accounts belonging to Elon Musk and SpaceX are being used as a target in a scam that promises crypto freedom.

To keep updated with Twitter news, I followed today. This mysterious message arrived within a matter of hours.

An anonymous account using a Twitter logo as the profile picture had added me on a Twitter list known as ‘Deal of the year’.

Most Twitter accounts (including Musk’s) have a public list of Twitter followers. This can be viewed by any bot or threat actor for malicious purposes.

This is the mobile version of the “Deal of the Year” list:

Today’s update shows that the threat actor (the administrator) has added 155 new members to this list. These accounts were reviewed by BleepingComputer and seen following Elon Musk and SpaceX on Twitter.

The header image is at the top.

This banner seems to be an official tweet by Elon Musk promising free cryptocurrency to “1000 new subscribers” selected randomly.

This is before you realize the true user name behind the fraud account, @CroweYoshiko, located right below the list name, “Deal of the year” with its profile pic, (Twitter logo), lending credibility to it.

Also convincing is the URL Freedomgiveaway.net. Musk, who is self-described as a free speech absolutist and tweets frequently about freedom of speech [ , ] and has also taken controversial steps in order to direct Twitter in this direction.

Bogus quiz asks you for BTC address

Users are welcomed to freedomgiveaway.net by being asked to confirm they have reached the “age of 18” and then presented with fake quizzes on Tesla, StarLink and Musk. These questions are well-known.

Users are presented with an instruction screen to enter their Bitcoin address after answering all the questions correctly. The website will prompt for your BTC address regardless of which cryptocurrency you choose: Ethereum, Bitcoin or Binance Coin.

Website promises that your wallet with 5000 BTC will be credit, however you need to deposit some money first. This amount can range from 0.02 BTC up to 1 BTC.

False pretense: The amount that the victim sends will be multiplied by 5–10 times, with large amounts being returned to the victim’s bank account.

This is the Bitcoin address that was advertised by the attacker:

Like any other crypto-gavel scam, victims end up sending funds to their attackers’ wallet and never receiving any money back.

The website has been flooded by inauthentic comments, praising Musk’s giveaway and making it appear more legit. These comments are most likely fake or bot-generated.

Group-IB, a cybersecurity company revealed that the number of scam domains containing cryptographic giveaways has tripled in September.

McAfee’s May investigation and BleepingComputer’s May report found that fake crypto giveaways had using Elon Musk’s Ark Invest YouTube videos. This was done to lure them towards scam, fake domains.

The Freedom Giveaway scam wallet shows $0.00 at the time this article was written. This indicates that no one has yet fallen for it. The scam may be new and BleepingComputer believes that warning people about it is important.

Followers of famous celebrities on Twitter should be cautious about suspicious notifications and messages.

Update Dec 7, 2009, 09:40 ET: I added screenshots of comments made by fake users to the giveaway website.