From business email compromises to romance scams, criminals are raking in billions by using one powerful tool: social engineering. They lure their victims into making mistakes that could cost them everything – whether it’s trusting someone they shouldn’t or sending their hard-earned money into a black hole. But just when we thought we’d seen it all, a new sinister scheme called “pig butchering” has emerged, and it’s quickly becoming one of the most effective ways to steal large sums from unsuspecting targets.
Originally hailing from Southeast Asia, pig butchering scams have now made their way across the globe, leaving a trail of heartbreak and empty bank accounts. The scam is typically run by a group of cryptocurrency scammers who scour dating apps and social media platforms in search of vulnerable targets. The scammer creates a fake profile and reaches out to their victim via social media, WhatsApp, Tinder, or other dating sites. They may even try random texts, posing as an old acquaintance or sending messages to an incorrect number. Once they’ve made contact, the scammer will engage the victim in friendly conversation, posing as a new friend or a potential lover. Their ultimate goal? To establish trust with the victim and reel them into their trap.
This first phase of the scam can take days, weeks or even months. A stranger will contact you out of the blue via social media, text, email or a messaging app and attempt to engage you in an exchange and build a rapport. They may try to win your trust by messaging you about topics that interest you and that they already know interest you from going through your own online activity and social accounts. In this initial phase of the scam it is likely that they won’t even mention money or financial investments.
The goals for the next phase of the scheme are twofold: to create the perception that you’ll make money by following the bad actor’s instructions and to ensure that you have the ability to invest into the forthcoming scam. Once the scammers are happy that they have built a relationship with you they may reach out to share that they have a connection at a reputable financial institution and offer to share the contact with you or dangle riches they supposedly made through trading cryptocurrency. They’ll encourage you to purchase or transfer cryptocurrency assets using a specific trading platform, which in all likelihood is fake and controlled by the scammers or others associated with them. There are variations of this scam with the same end goal, to relieve you of large sums of money through deception.
With the relationship firmly established the scammers may now try to capitalise further by showing you fake evidence of massive gains and encourage you to invest larger amounts. Once they determine that they’ve taken all they can from you or you try to withdraw some of your gains they will likely cut of all contact and disappear into thin air, leaving you with significant financial losses.
In other cases, the stocks that scammers promote may seem promising at first, only to quickly plummet once the scammer manipulates the market. And if you’ve recently moved your assets to a new cryptocurrency platform, you might suddenly find yourself locked out of your account.
According to experts, these kinds of scams can take a severe toll on victims both financially and emotionally, much like romance scams and other forms of personal exploitation. The psychological impact can be particularly devastating, and some scams even involve the use of forced labour to carry out their schemes, creating even more urgency to address the threat.
Our Human Risk Management Solution educates end-users on cyber threats and helps build a cyber security culture at your organisation with Cyber Awareness Training and Simulated Phishing campaigns.
We are currently offering a free Human Risk Report and a 14-day free trial of our complete Human Risk Management service. For further information please visit our webpage or email hello@nuatech.uk
