Cryptocurrency ICOs are often targeted by criminals and hackers alike. A lot of people have tried to take advantage of these platforms as a way to steal money or defraud investors in other ways. The Everex ICO has fallen victim to such a scam, as all its investors were targeted by a dedicated spam campaign. The email in question included an Ethereum address for “unsolved tokens”, although the crowdsale concluded successfully not too long ago.
Beware of the Fake Everex ICO Email
It is neither the first nor the last time we will see a cryptocurrency ICO fall victim to scammers and hackers. Issues like these have been going on for quite some time now, and it appears the criminals are only getting craftier. This latest scam involving the Everex ICO mailing list goes to show how resourceful criminals can be in the long run. It remains unclear how they obtained this list of email addresses in the first place.
In the email, the scammers note the steps taken by the Everex team now that its crowdsale has come to an end. According to the note, the token audit will take place, the smart contract will be audited independently, and Accenture will help audit funds. All of that information is legitimate and was previously communicated by the Everex team themselves. Reaffirming this information demonstrates the criminals were all too aware that the Everex crowdsale had concluded not long ago.
What is more concerning is the bottom portion of this email, which states that some unsold tokens are available for purchase. It is unclear how many such tokens were supposedly being “sold”, even though everyone knows by now this was not a legitimate offering whatsoever. The team has concluded its crowdsale and will not be selling any additional tokens whatsoever. The Ethereum address included in the email should also be ignored, as users will only lose money by transferring funds to it.
Unfortunately, it appears some people have sent Ethereum funds to this wallet already. According to Etherscan, the address has collected 110.889 Ether, or US$36,791, at the time of writing. Rest assured this number will continue to grow even though several warnings have been issued regarding the fake address. With 47 transactions having taken place already, it is clear a lot of novice cryptocurrency ICO investors will have to learn things the hard way.
The bigger question in all this is how the Everex mailing list was compromised in the first place. Gmail shows the fake email was “signed by Everex.io.” The email itself also indicated exactly how many EVX tokens individuals had purchased up to that point. That in itself is another disconcerting factor which cannot be explained.
Thankfully, none of the money or tokens raised during the ICO itself are in danger. All that money seemingly is accounted for right now, which is a good sign. It is unfortunate some people have lost good money due to this new ICO email scam, though. Schemes like these always raise a lot of money quickly despite warnings from the community not to invest. The final tally of money raised through this fake email may very well hit six digits in the coming hours and days.
