A fraudulent link to the Wasabi bitcoin wallet for Windows

Unknown attackers have created a fake website to download the popular anonymous Bitcoin wallet Wasabi. This was reported by leading Wasabi developer Adam Fichor (nopara73).

Wasabi: https://t.co/08VrjnrVsr

Not only for Windows, but not for our GitHub? pic.twitter.com/t7jKViESZ2

– nopara73 (@ nopara73) March 21, 2019

The fraudulent site wasabibitcoinwallet (.) Org has four links to the latest version of the wallet for macOS, Windows and two for Linux.

It is noteworthy that all of them direct users to the real Wasabi wallet hosted on GitHub, with the exception of the link to the Windows version, which downloads a suspicious MSI file placed directly on the scam site.

At the same time, Adam Fichor pointed out that the anti-virus engines are not able to detect this malicious program.

Oh boy This is going to be messy: pic.twitter.com/0RLUcrztxK

– nopara73 (@ nopara73) March 21, 2019

In the course of further investigation, the developer found out that the fake version is not just a virus, but a certain kind of scam.

“Perhaps the attackers using such a sample create their own user base. Linux and macOS users will vouch for the site because their software is original, so this can create confusion in the forums where they distribute the link, ” Ficor suggested in The Next Web commentary.

He also added that the scammers recreated the version specifically for Windows, since the development of the “modified Wasabi” for other platforms simply was beyond their power.

“Malefactors do not have a key that I use to sign a binary file in Windows. Therefore, when you install their software, Microsoft will notify you that the software has an unknown publisher. But the average user is unlikely to pay attention to this, ”the developer warns.

Last December, BlockchainJournal published an extensive interview with the Wasabi Wallet team.

Recall that in November 2018, applications simulating wallets for Neo, Tether and Ethereum, as well as the MetaMask extension, were found in the Google Play store. Applications stole credit card information as well as information for mobile banking.

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