The FBI warns the public about criminals targeting US stock investors through social media platforms and messaging service applications (apps). The scheme, known as a “ramp-and-dump” stock manipulation, targets US investors through online engagement, often via social media advertisements or messages promoting an “investment club” of fellow investors, some of which may be bots or fake accounts.
These promotions typically direct victims to secure messaging apps where the group operates. To appear credible, perpetrators may impersonate legitimate brokerage firms or well-known stock analysts. They secretly control a large volume of a low-priced stock and coordinate efforts to inflate its price (“ramp up”) by encouraging investment club members to purchase shares over a period of several weeks or months. Once the price is artificially elevated, the criminals sell off (“dump”) their shares at a profit, leaving unsuspecting investors with significant losses as the stock value collapses.
Read more…
Source: U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation Cyber Division
Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox.
Related:
- Iranian Cyber Group Emennet Pasargad Conducting Hack-and-Leak Operations Using False-Flag Personas
October 20, 2022
The FBI is providing information concerning ongoing hack-and-leak cyber operations conducted by Iranian cyber group Emennet Pasargad. According to FBI information, since at least 2020, Emennet targeted entities primarily in Israel with cyber-enabled information operations that included an initial intrusion, theft and subsequent leak of data, followed by amplification through social media and online forums, ...
- Oops, web trackers may have leaked 3 million patients’ info
October 20, 2022
A hospital network in Wisconsin and Illinois fears visitor tracking code on its websites may have transmitted personal information on as many as 3 million patients to Meta, Google, and other third parties. Advocate Aurora Health (AAH) reported the potential breach to the US government’s Health and Human Services. As well as millions of patients, AAH ...
- Verizon notifies prepaid customers their accounts were breached
October 18, 2022
Verizon warned an undisclosed number of prepaid customers that attackers gained access to Verizon accounts and used exposed credit card info in SIM swapping attacks. “We determined that between October 6 and October 10, 2022, a third party actor accessed the last four digits of the credit card used to make automatic payments on your account,” ...
- The voting machine hacking threat you probably haven’t heard about
October 14, 2022
There’s a largely overlooked hacking target that could help those who want to sow doubt about vote tallies in the November midterms: cellular modems that transmit unofficial election-night results. The modems, which send vote data from precincts to central offices using cellphone networks, help election officials satisfy the public’s demand for rapid results. But putting any ...
- Budworm: Espionage Group Returns to Targeting U.S. Organizations
October 13, 2022
The Budworm espionage group has mounted attacks over the past six months against a number of strategically significant targets, including the government of a Middle Eastern country, a multinational electronics manufacturer, and a U.S. state legislature. The latter attack is the first time in a number of years Symantec has seen Budworm targeting a U.S-based ...
- Hospital giant’s IT still poorly a week after suspected ransomware infection
October 12, 2022
Computer systems are still down at CommonSpirit Health – America’s second-largest nonprofit hospital network – more than a week after it was hit by a somewhat mystery cyberattack. The US’s largest Catholic healthcare provider remains very tight-lipped about the root cause of this digital breakdown, and when it expects its systems to come back online. At ...