- Phishing is a commonly used internet scam
- The scammers intended to steal personal information and keys
- BAT is trying to address the matter
A new Phishing campaign targeting users of the Brave browser has been discovered. A Reddit user noticed the scam making the rounds on social media.
Brave users targeted
A Reddit user sounded the alert on June 12, 2019, stating that scammers are doing mass emailing to try and have people download a fake upgrade for the Brave browser by promising 30 BAT (Basic Attention Token) tokens to the early birds. The Phishing site, {brave-browser.info} has been designed to look exactly like the actual brave site https://brave.com/. The fake version of the now-popular browser has been designed to steal the keys on a user’s PC and other personal data.
Phishing is one of the most dangerous and most commonly used internet scams these days. In a phishing attack, the scammers attempt to trick innocent victims to provide sensitive information involving fake websites and emails that resemble the legitimate ones. Users are vulnerable because they almost always do not discriminate between legitimate and malicious websites and emails therefore subjecting themselves to fraud and identity theft.
Personal data at risk
For the unsuspecting user, this could mean great financial risks or loss of money through fake transactions but in other cases, it means stolen personal information that the attackers can use for their personal gain. The stolen information is a risk not only to the users but can put even financial institutions to great risks through huge amounts of fraudulent transactions.
The Phishing process can also be used to install ransomware and illegal software in a user’s system without the knowledge of the user so the attackers can continually continue to steal information from the user or their computer. There have been several Phishing attacks targeting owners and users of the Basic Attention Token (BAT). In the past these attacks sent a message that a user needed to check their crypto balance but in this case they are tricking users to upgrade their browsers with the promise of some free tokens.
Earlier in January, Brave announced it was previewing its opt-in advertising feature, Brave Ads and opened the feature to all users of its desktop browser for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Brave Ads is an opt-in digital advertising feature built with user privacy in mind. Come April 2019, the company launched the 1st ad platform built on privacy. Brave desktop browser (0.63.48) users who opt into Brave Ads receive 70% of ad revenue share. Brave puts the user in control, rewards them for their attention, and helps fund content creators, making it popular. A Reddit user Bat-Chriscat said BAT was aware of the problem and was trying to address the matter.
