Popular Bitcoin exchange Kraken has issued a warning regarding a potential phishing website. Various company users have reported this fictitious platform, which seems to be appearing in advertisements across all the main search engines. Internet criminals are working hard to steal users’ Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency balances, that much is certain.
It appears as if someone is deliberately mimicking favorite websites for just about any cryptocurrency platform in existence right now. Google search results are littered with advertisements for malicious sites pretending to be the real deal. While most of these sites get removed temporarily, it is not a permanent solution by any means.
A Fake Kraken Website Appears Everywhere
The fake Kraken website shows up in the browser address bar as “kraken1.com”. Anyone who is paying attention to what they are doing will notice this issue straight away. On the outside, however, the site looks like an exact clone of the real Kraken, which is rather troublesome for novice users.
Then again, when conducting a Google search for “Kraken Bitcoin”, users will immediately see two results. The first link is an ad, which is never the real company site in the Bitcoin world. The one just below that is the actual exchange platform, including HTTPS certificate and the proper description.
Unfortunately, Google is not the only search engine hosting these malicious ads. The blog post mentions Yahoo and Bing as other places where the same ads are being hosted. Someone – or a collective of individuals – are trying to trick users into giving up their account passwords and cryptocurrency platforms.
Any Kraken user who makes use of a password for email accounts or other online services may have had those accounts compromised already. To make matters worse, users will not receive information regarding suspicious account activity when the criminal controls the email account. For the longest time, technology advocates have been warning Internet users not to reuse passwords across multiple platforms.
Getting these types of advertisements taken down can be quite a tedious process, unfortunately. A Google/Yahoo/Bing support employee,will have to review the case, after which the company will evaluate the site listing. By the time is resolved, dozens, if not hundreds of people could have fallen victim to this phishing scam.
Source: Blog.Kraken.com
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