Author Archives: Harry Freeborough

Investment scams and AI – a match made in heaven?  

Online investment scams are a big money spinner for criminals, accounting for $4.6B of losses in the US. With the explosion of interest in artificial intelligence (AI) following the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in late 2022, it was perhaps inevitable that criminals would look to jump on the bandwagon to promote a new generation of bogus investment products that claim to “harnesses the power of AI.”  

Netcraft has uncovered a range of malicious sites using ChatGPT and OpenAI-themed content to attract would-be investors looking to take advantage of the rise of generative AI. Many tout the use of “advanced trading technology,” promising outlandish returns, and feature bogus success stories. Once lured in, would-be investors are tricked into making payments that inevitably never result in the promised returns.  

In this blog, we’ll walk through some of the examples we’ve found. 

“ChatGPT platform” with fake Sam Altman and Elon Musk videos 

One such investment scam campaign blatantly impersonates ChatGPT, claiming to be powered by the popular generative AI platform, allowing it to “imitate the thinking of analysts.” Seeking to establish credibility, this scam claims more than 1 million registered users and $68 million invested each month. Particularly implausible, given the domain name had been registered eight days prior. 

Figure 1 Fake investment platform masquerading as ChatGPT – hxxps://lifecovewe[.]world. 

The site also includes a poorly crafted video that attempts to fool the visitor into thinking it is a genuine endorsement from Sam Altman (the CEO of OpenAI). It espouses the increasing power of machine learning, with the tool being able to “analyze the market situation and correlate data in real-time”. With rapid progress being made with deepfakes, it is only a matter of time before videos created by criminals …

Continue reading The AI Gold Rush: ChatGPT and OpenAI targeted in AI-themed investment scams→

Online investment scams are a global, growing, and uniquely pernicious threat. In newly released data, the Federal Trade Commission attributed more than $4.6 billion of US fraud losses in 2023 to investment scams, more than any other fraud category, and a 21% increase in 2022. The FBI’s 2023 Internet Crime Report notes that investment scams were “once again the costliest type of crime tracked by IC3”.

Many investment scams rely on sophisticated fraudulent investment websites that operate a fake trading platform to trick victims into depositing money after being lured in through email, social media posts or fake ads. In January alone, Netcraft detected and blocked almost 13,000 fake investment platform domains across more than 7,000 IPs: the largest number of IPs since we began tracking the platforms independently and 25% more than in December. 

Online investment scams promise very high returns with no risks attached, claiming to deliver once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for investors to make guaranteed returns overnight. Usually claiming to trade in forex, cryptocurrency, or other high-risk assets, the unsuspecting investor needs only to make an initial payment to take advantage. These guarantees are meaningless, the claimed investment is a sham, and the victim’s money is lost. The impacts on victims can be devastating both financially and emotionally. 

In this blog post, we will take a deep dive into how the cybercriminals behind these scam websites find victims, operate fake trading platforms, deploy social engineering tactics, and eventually trick victims into depositing substantial amounts of money. 

Recruiting users to join a fake investment platform 

Fake investment platforms are advertised through a myriad of channels. Many are spread through social media platforms like Meta or messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Reports to Netcraft from our community confirm this. 

One frequently observed technique works by inviting …

Continue reading Online investment scams: Inside a fake trading platform→