$50 million stolen by hackers who used fake ads

According to the media outlets familiar with the report made by Cisco, hackers have managed to weaponize the advertisements one can place on Google and stole fifty million dollars by using fraudulent websites. The ad messages appeared near the first results of related Google search requests and led to websites which were disguised as a real Blockchain.info platform. One of the notable differences were the URLs: “blockhein” instead of “blockchain” and similar red flags.

Anyhow, those red flags did not stop a large number of people from getting baited. Their money became transferred to the miscreants’ wallets right after they entered their Blockchain.info personal data.

How did Cisco find out that the hacker group was Ukrainian? Turns out the firm cooperated with the local Cyber Police. The authors of the report also note that this fraudulent scheme is becoming popular, as criminals see an easy target in cryptocurrency services.

The report also tells that the criminals have targeted countries of Africa, where cryptocurrencies are popular as a means to store savings.