It appears a new phishing email is making the rounds in the cryptocurrency world. For the umpteenth time, someone is trying to impersonate an exchange. The platform in question is BTC-E, which is one of the older exchanges. In the message, users are told their accounts will be closed due to “microtransactions”. They are then asked to click a link to start a verification process. This is a clear phishing attempt and this email should be ignored by all recipients.
Beware of the New BTC-E Phishing Mail
Cryptocurrency users all over the world have seen their fair share of phishing emails over the years. It appears criminals try to trick people into giving up their wallet credentials. In some cases, they even go as far as impersonating exchanges. This particular incident revolves around someone sending out emails to BTC-E users. It is unclear where they got this list of email addresses from, though.Moreover, a lot of people not using BTC-E got this email as well.
The email asks users to click a link and start a verification process. This process has to do with accounts being “locked” due to microtransactions. That is a rather strange reason, and it should raise red flags among cryptocurrency enthusiasts right away. It is not uncommon for exchanges to ask for additional verification. However, they will never do so via email and ask users to click a link. This is a clear sign of someone trying to obtain login credentials.
Other signs of this message being a fake are the numerous spelling errors found in the message. Moreover, the “sender” it “support@bte-c.com” instead of “support@btc-e.com”. These small mistakes give away the true intentions of this unusual email campaign. Visiting the bte-c website also results in seeing a somewhat convincing clone of the official BTC-E website. It is remarkable people go through such lengths, yet are seemingly incapable of writing four lines of text without glaring mistakes.
It is possible this email database originates from the site’s database leak years ago. For now, it is anybody’s guess as to where this information is coming from. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts should never use the same email address for multiple services. Additionally, they need to ignore blatant phishing emails such as this one. It is obvious someone wants to empty BTC-E wallet accounts, albeit it seems unlikely they will be even remotely successful.
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