{"id":10577,"date":"2024-09-18T09:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T16:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.infoblox.com\/?p=10577"},"modified":"2024-09-18T09:08:51","modified_gmt":"2024-09-18T16:08:51","slug":"no-elon-musk-was-not-in-the-us-presidential-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.infoblox.com\/blog\/threat-intelligence\/no-elon-musk-was-not-in-the-us-presidential-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"No, Elon Musk was not in the U.S. Presidential Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cybercriminals jumped at the opportunity last week to use the U.S. presidential debate as fodder for a new cryptocurrency scam. Victims were lured by deep fake videos claiming to show Elon Musk joining Donald Trump in a \u201cfiery\u201d debate against Kamala Harris. Unfortunately for viewers who tuned in to see Musk and Trump team up against Harris, the streamed session started with Musk saying that Trump could not join him because he is occupied with the Harris debate. After that, the video turns to the theme of cryptocurrency and tells viewers that they could win big by investing in cryptocurrency during the streamed event. <\/p>\n

Infoblox first reported this campaign in a Mastodon post<\/a> shortly after it began. The videos were streamed from well-established YouTube accounts, some with over 2.4M subscribers, and at one point on Saturday, we saw over 184k accounts watching one of the videos live. The videos contained QR codes linked to domains that are made to look like the candidates or cryptocurrency platforms, adding further deception. All of this demonstrates how criminals take advantage of high-profile current events, social media, and artificial intelligence (AI) to make money. While YouTube took down account after account, some videos were available for over 12 hours, tricking an untold number of users. But by blocking access to suspicious domains, users can be protected from these clever scams. <\/p>\n

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While Infoblox<\/a> and other researchers from Guardio<\/a> and BitDefender<\/a> have reported on the use of hijacked YouTube channels to advertise crypto-currency scams in the past, this campaign differs in that the actors behind it attempt to leverage current events, namely the presidential debate, to get their videos close to the top of search results. In January 2024, BitDefender<\/a> was one of the first to report on the use of deep fake technology to alter existing videos to include content that promotes the scams and to add legitimacy, but the content was not related to a specific event. As press around the debate faded, these actors took advantage of the news cycle with videos this week entitled \u201cElon Musk Reveals Insights on Trump Assassination Attempt and Election<\/a> Support.\u201d This video was also quickly taken down, but we captured a copy; view it here.<\/p>\n