Crowd2Fund customers have been sent fraudulent messages asking for payments in cryptocurrencies, which the platform said was due to a third-party marketing tool that had been compromised.
An email purporting to be from the peer-to-peer business lender, seen by Peer2Peer Finance News, said that it had developed an integration of its platform with cryptocurrency, enabling its users to deposit, invest, earn and withdraw cryptocurrency.
The email said that it had randomly chosen 100 users of the platform and asked them to send “any amount of ETH or USD stablecoins on ERC-20” to a web address by 13 August, to receive a bonus of up to 15 per cent depending on the amount paid.
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The fraudulent email also promised increased APR for cryptocurrency investments into the platform once the new functionality launched.
Crowd2Fund subsequently emailed customers saying, “it has come to our attention that there is suspicious activity fraudulently representing Crowd2Fund via SMS and email”. It urged users not to send money or click on any links.
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“After checking our systems, it appears a third-party marketing tool was briefly compromised, accessing some of our customer contact details,” Crowd2Fund said in the investor email, seen by P2PFN. “We sincerely regret any issues caused; however, we assure you that there is no real cause for concern. We are continuously scanning our systems to ensure your information continues to remain safe and secure.”
It confirmed that Crowd2Fund does not support crypto integration or investment.
The platform said it is “an absolute top priority” to ensure the sturdiest security measures are taken to prevent this from happening again.
“We are confident that the upgrade of our servers and the new security measures implemented are robust enough to prevent any similar issues from arising again,” it added.
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A Crowd2Fund spokesperson told Peer2Peer Finance News via email: “A number of investors have received phishing messages. Our technical teams are investigating. We have written to investors to caution them and remind them of cybercrime risks, but most have readily recognised this as a phishing scam. There is no detriment to our investors’ underlying accounts on the platform and we will be writing again to every investor to keep them updated shortly.”
