Google Fraud Fighter Explains Risks Involved in Boasting About Owning Bitcoin

People need to rethink before bragging about owning a lot of bitcoin in a public forum, as this might give way for scammers to target them, says a Google executive, who fights email frauds and abuses.

Speaking to CNBC, Mark Risher said that there has been an increase in attacks against people who hold cryptocurrencies in wallets. Boasting about owing bitcoin in public message boards can be quickly followed by criminal activities on their mail accounts, he said.

“It could just be a case of mistaken identity or guilt by association,” Risher stated. According to him, scammers are having a track of people’s personal social media posts and other sources before targeting them as victims to email scams.

“They could be using someone who seems to be low value to pivot toward somebody considered a higher value target, like somebody political in nature. Or maybe they saw that you were discussing Bitcoin on a public message board.”

Such messages or posts can give way to…