Scammers Impersonate CoinMarketCap to Sell Fake ‘CMC’ Tokens

In an attempt to defraud potential users, scammers hacked major crypto market data provider CoinMarketCap‘s CrypTown social network and published links to a fake token sale.

According to screenshots shared by users, the Binance-owned CoinMarketCap’s verified account shared a post teasing the crypto data aggregator’s token presale. “Official CoinMarketCap Presale,” the post read, before asking users to click on a seemingly fake link to buy “CMC” tokens. 

While CoinMarketCap has not directly addressed the incident, the data aggregator did issue a notice, warning users that it would never ask for money, private keys, or any other personal information.

“CoinMarketCap is a data aggregator media service. We are NOT hosting a Pre-Sale for CoinMarketCap Tokens. Beware of scammers impersonating us,” the data aggregator said.

Meanwhile, technically, analysts argue that the scam was easy to spot.

“Intruders offered to just send money to some third-party address,” Dmitry Mishunin, founder and CEO of a smart contract audit company HashEx, told Cryptonews.com, adding that: 

“It is unlikely that such a large company would conduct a sale without a smart contract and connecting a wallet on the site.”

So far, the year has seen its fair share of the seemingly rising crypto crime trend. This can be observed in the number and the size of the recent hacks, such as the over USD 600m theft from the gaming-focused Ronin Network‘s, which can be categorized as one of the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks ever.

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