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- According to a report, a Bitcoin-to-QR-code generators’ network has looted over $45,000 from the users in the past four weeks.
- Instead of converting the Bitcoin address which was entered into the site to its equivalent QR code; the website generated the same QR code always for a fake wallet.
- Like the one which Denley discovered, eight other sites were performing the same activity and telling that they were introduced by the scammer.
According to a report, a Bitcoin-to-QR-code generators’ network has looted over $45,000 from the users in the past four weeks.
The Nine malicious QR code generator sites
The Nine malicious QR code generator sites offered users to enter their Bitcoin address that was a long string of text where the Bitcoin funds are stored. This is further converted into a QR code image that can be saved on their PC or smartphone.
It’s a general practice to share the Bitcoin address as a QR code and request the payer for the payment. With the use of the Bitcoin wallet app, the receiver scans the QR code and sends the requested payment without typing an extensive Bitcoin address.
Through QR codes, users reduce the possibility of mistyping the address which may send the funds into the wrong wallet.
The website generated the same QR code always for a fake wallet
Past week, the Director of Security at the MyCrypto platform, Harry Denley found a suspicious site that converted Bitcoin addresses into QR codes. Though many services are working under the same process, Denley found the site malicious. Instead of converting the Bitcoin address which was entered into the site to its equivalent QR code; the website generated the same QR code always for a fake wallet.
That means if the user shared the QR code to someone else for payment request, or inputted on the website to request for donations, the entire money would be transferred to the scammer’s Bitcoin address.
Like the one which Denley discovered, eight other sites were performing the same activity and telling that they were introduced by the scammer.
- bitcoin-barcode-generator.com
- bitcoinaddresstoqrcode.com
- bitcoins-qr-code.com
- btc-to-qr.com
- create-bitcoin-qr-code.com
- free-bitcoin-qr-codes.com
- freebitcoinqrcodes.com
- qr-code-bitcoin.com
- qrcodebtc.com
These nine websites generate QR code for five different Bitcoin addresses, which received funds of around 7 BTC i.e. $45,000, most likely from misleading users.
Denley stated that he traced the nine malicious sites to three web servers by using PassiveTotal, a threat intelligence platform for RiskIQ.
Beware of fake QR Generators
With the use of PassiveTotal, Denley found that the same servers were also hosting more tan 450 other websites, that were shady looking domains, containing terms like Gmail, coronavirus information, and the brands of crypto-related entities.
The sites hosted on the three web servers were not active and merely contained ads for cryptocurrency gambling sites, where the user can bet and win a massive price. Such sites are considered scams.
Besides all these the three servers also hosted Bitcoin transaction accelerators. The users are requested to enter the ID of a Bitcoin transaction and assure to “accelerate” the transaction’s approval process on the Bitcoin blockchain. These sites are bitcoin-transaction-accelerator.com, transaction-accelerator.com, bitcoin-tx-transaction-accelerator.com, and viabtc-transaction-accelerator.com.
Denley found that these malicious sites were requesting for 0.001 BTC ($6.5) fee. Also, the addresses where the fees were collected had received more than 17.6 BTC, which is around $117,000.
