Cybersecurity experts at SentinelLABS have warned that hackers have taken over old YouTube accounts that posted cryptocurrency news and investment advice to promote a malicious trading bot.
According to experts, the fraudulent scheme has been operating since at least 2024. It is distributed through YouTube videos, which, in addition to advice, publish the code of a smart contract for launching a crypto trading bot.
After the user deploys smart contract, the attacker adds his wallet, hiding it under a trading address. When the contract is replenished, the fraudster gains access to the funds.
The cryptocurrency ecosystem is becoming increasingly complex, and such scams are bound to succeed unless people carefully analyze the tools involved, paying attention to the inputs and outputs, said Alex Delamottea, senior analyst at SentinelLABS.
He said that during the investigation it was established that “the fraudulent schemes had varying degrees of success”: 7,59 ETH were transferred to the most recent wallet of the fraudster, 4,19 ETH to another, and 244,9 ETH to a third, which in total exceeds $939,000.
According to Delamotti, all the YouTube accounts used by the scammers were created a long time ago. It is not yet clear whether the attackers created these channels or simply bought them for the scam.