Social media accounts for sale

Social media accounts are or sale on dark marketplaces online.

• A good Twitter account goes for $8, while a Tinder account goes for $18, at least according to one screenshot published by Chainalysis, the crypto surveillance firm.

Why it matters: Despite being super easy to recognize, "pig butchering" persists.

Catch up fast: Pig butchering is a scam where people get an unexpected text message from a stranger. They reply, and the scammer starts chatting in a friendly manner.

• Then the scammer begins pushing them to "invest" in a cryptocurrency scheme. Only there is no investment. Funds deposited will never be seen again.
• Scammers prey on people's loneliness and isolation.

Zoom in: We've been writing about this for a while now, but pig butchering has proceeded unabated. One tiny facet that struck us from this midyear report is that screenshot Chainalysis showed from a fraud site, showing social media accounts for sale.

• Since summer 2023, fraud shops have been making between $500,000 and $750,000 most months just selling social media accounts for use in scams.

📺 My thought bubble: This is partly a story about a media environment where there's just no way to reach everyone.

• The people who most need to get educated about pig butchering aren't getting the message, while the internet security sites covering the issue ad nauseam are full of readers highly unlikely to fall for it in the first place.