Name
Danger of Dating Apps: Breeding Grounds for Fraud
Description

With 50 million Americans now using dating apps to find love and partnership, fraudsters have found new opportunities to spread scams and malicious content across these popular networking platforms. In this session, Jane Lee, Trust and Safety Architect at Sift, will focus on the rise of crypto romance scams perpetrated across dating platforms in recent years, and the negative impact they’ve had on both consumers and companies. Specifically, Jane will present findings from her own research going undercover to expose how the ‘Pig Butchering’ scam works, which is an increasingly common romance scam using cryptocurrency as a lure. Jane’s research into Pig Butchering exposed a highly sophisticated take on the classic romance scam, where fraudsters used emotional manipulation and the average person’s increasing curiosity about crypto to their advantage. The scammers matched and messaged unsuspecting users, quickly taking the conversation off-platform to encrypted apps like WhatsApp, where they shared alarmingly realistic fake crypto exchange sites to convince the victims that their investments were real. Once the fraudsters felt they had drained enough money from the victims, they quickly ceased contact and disappeared. Jane’s presentation will cover the following topics: - What she learned by going undercover about the mechanics of the Pig Butchering scam, using real life examples. - The methods that marketplaces and social platforms can use to detect and remove fraudulent profiles and malicious content. - Best practices for educating users and the public about how to spot these scams.

Location Name
Seacliff B
Date
Wednesday, July 12, 2023
Time
1:30 PM - 2:20 PM
Session Type
Presentation
Track
Research
Session Themes
Research
Audience
All TrustCon attendees
Will this session be recorded?
Yes