The FBI has issued a public service announcement (PSA) warning about the use of play-to-win games as part of a scheme to defraud users of funds stored in the form of cryptocurrency. The criminals introduce victims to this type of game and then use malware to extract the funds from the cryptocurrency wallets linked to the game, according to the bureau.
FBI Issues Public Service Announcement About Play to Earn Games Crypto Scheme
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning about the introduction of play-to-win games in schemes aimed at stealing funds from unsuspecting users. On March 9, the institution issued a public service announcement about this, explaining how criminals are luring users into putting funds into play-to-win games.
According to the PSA, criminals establish a relationship with targeted victims in order to gain their trust. After this, they are enticed to participate in play-to-win online games that offer rewards for their actions, and to put funds into a cryptocurrency wallet as a form of participation mechanism.
The advertised rewards are proportional to the amount of funds stored in the cryptocurrency wallet, so users are incentivized to deposit more funds to get more rewards.
Games show fake rewards growing in your cryptocurrency wallet and spend more funds to keep increasing your rewards. However, when they want to withdraw these rewards, the criminals empty their wallets of the deposited cryptocurrency and request more funds to help recover the stolen cryptocurrency, as the ultimate heist against the targeted victim.
How to avoid being a victim
In the PSA, the FBI also offers a series of recommendations to avoid being a victim of criminals who use these types of schemes. The first has to do with the segregation of funds, as the bureau advises keeping other funds separate from a gaming wallet, which should be created for gaming purposes only; this minimizes the impact of having a wallet leak.
Another recommendation urges users to verify their alleged earnings using a third-party block explorer, to verify that they are real and actually received in the wallet of whatever cryptocurrency is being used. The final recommendation advises users to check which sites have access to the funds in their cryptocurrency wallets and to revoke these accesses periodically to prevent loss of funds from unknown contracts.
The FBI issued several public service announcements last year, including a pig slaughter scam warning in December and another related to decentralized finance in August.
What do you think about the latest FBI warning about schemes using gambling to win games? Tell us in the comment section below.
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