Rarible NFT Marketplace Targets Scammers and Typesquatters
Posted: 04 May 2021, 18:41
The general interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) has not spared scammers either. Experts from Bolster noticed that the Rarible marketplace (rarible.com) was targeted by typesquatters who spread malware, engage in fraudulent activities, etc.
Researchers have discovered a number of typesquatting domains targeting Rarible users. For example, rarbile [.] сom masquerading as the real rarible.com. Because search engines do a good job of hiding such domains from search results, scammers often use WhatsApp and Telegram to spread malicious links, social media posts, direct social media posts, or even buy ads.
Another example of an attack on Rarible is wwwrarible [.] сom, with no dot between www and rarible. When visitors mistakenly land on this URL, they are redirected to a site offering a fake Firefox update. One of the browser extensions to which the site directed victims the other day, injects ads on all sites visited by the user, and also monitors all human activity on the Internet.
Other domains discovered by Bolster rarbile [.] сom redirect visitors to various fraudulent resources. These can be fake spinning wheel games, fake dating sites designed to collect information, as well as fake tech support or sites that distribute packages of unwanted and adware.
Bleeping Computer writes that one of these "sets" of software installed a cryptocurrency miner on the journalists' test machine, but they could not reproduce this on subsequent visits to the site.
Bolster analysts predict that scammers will continue will continue to exploit the NFT theme by creating fake marketplaces that steal buyers' cryptocurrency, fake NFTs posing as artists, and fake giveaways.