Security company MailGuard discovered the scam, which spoofs an email from LocalBitcoins, using the exchange’s branding and compromised email accounts to give the message a sense of legitimacy. The email suggests the site is undergoing maintenance in order to facilitate the quality of its service and to ‘reduce the rate of spam virus’ on the service. As such, users are asked to verify and update their accounts via a provided link.
After the link is accessed, users are taken to a fake login page for LocalBitcoins, which asks for the user’s login for the Bitcoin trading site and their email. Also, the site includes a fake Google ‘reCaptcha’ verification tool, to give the fake site further legitimacy.
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