Bitcoin scammers find their way to extort money. If one way shuts for them, other ways tremendously get open for them. Despite strict regulations, the crypto scammers are now abandoning the cryptocurrency stealing and shifting their focus to prepaid debit cards. Kaspersky Lab (the cybersecurity company) releases the original findings. In its recent blog post, the company highlights that Brazil sees a growing trend among hackers. Meanwhile, the officials find reports that state hackers’ growing taste for prepaid cards abandoning bitcoins.

Bitcoin Scammers Demanding Not in Cryptocurrency But Prepaid Debit Cards

Scammers in the early days were hacking to steal information and broadcast if their demands weren’t fulfilled. But nowadays, the scheme gets a new twist from time-to-time. Earlier reports state that cybercriminals demand a ransom in cryptocurrency. Because such transactions are anonymous and extremely hard to trace. Lately, however, we’ve seen the use of a more traditional way (extortion demand via email) to demand different sorts of ransom. And now the prepaid ransom cards are the trendsetting way for them.

Surprise!! Surprise!! Two Photos to Steal Funds: A New Way from Crypto Scammers

Reports come that the new-age scammers from Brazil targets the Acesso debit card users in the country. Acesso cards are sold in Brazil and work with the Mastercard system. Scammers target those users mainly because such money gleaned from cards can spend anywhere where payments are accepted using Mastercards.

The Acesso scam works best for hackers as sending fake mails is easier than ever. The email tells recipients to purchase a prepaid card from the store and load it with funds. Later, take photos from both sides and reply to the same email thread. Once hackers get the visual representation of the cards, it’s easier for them to spend the funds. The whole process is similar to the way hackers earlier used to do with sextortion scam. The particular sextortion scheme uses here but a little differently.

Whether the trend could ultimately lead to a complete loss of interest in using Bitcoin among scammers, however, is open to interpretation.

It’s too early to say anything about the upcoming scenario. At the same time, we can only predict that prepaid debit card scams will supplant bitcoin as the new ransom currency of choice. In the meantime, crimes related to the cryptocurrency world remain a major threat to internet users. The recent crypto scams confirm around 2.2 million devices were targeted in the fiscal year 2018-19.