The total solar eclipse that occurred yesterday, April 8th, was on everyone’s lips. Media, social networks, video platforms… People from all over the world, even those who couldn’t see it in person (the vast majority), were interested in this rare event, becoming a great opportunity for cybercriminals.
On YouTube, a multitude of live broadcasts of the total solar eclipse in April were crowded, visible in parts of the United States and Mexico. However, many of these broadcasts were not real, using the image and name of Elon Musk to attract and scam unsuspecting crypto enthusiasts.
According to Mashable, each of these livestreams followed the same pattern: a pre-recorded video of Elon Musk played on loop, along with a SpaceX banner, speaking to a crowd. While the image was real, the video featured a fake voice of Musk generated by artificial intelligence, speaking to viewers about a supposed cryptocurrency investment opportunity that promised to double their investments.
On each of these videos there was a QR code that said “2024 Eclipse – Change your life” and a phrase that encouraged us to scan the code. The code led users to a website where they could “invest” their cryptocurrency, whether it be Bitcoin, Ether or another popular cryptocurrency, right there. “Invest” because, of course, everything went straight into the scammers’ pockets.
Many of these fake live streams even had a fake Elon Musk account in the chat, which left links for unsuspecting people to enter and give their money. Although the videos and associated YouTube accounts seem to have been deleted, this has been another example of the proliferation of cryptocurrency scams on the Internet, especially those that use Elon Musk as a “magnet”.
