Update – 5:14PM: Tune Talk has officially responded on Twitter, confirming what we suspected initially. The telco says that it is investigating the issue, and that users’ personal details are safe.
Original Article – 2:10PM:
The cryptocurency landscape has been harsh in recent times, if not for the the crash then for the many reports of scams involving it. Though the latter has an entry that’s pretty close to home, involving local telco Tune Talk.
Users of the Tune Talk mobile app have been sharing screenshots of the app sending out push notifications asking users to send Bitcoins to a particular crypto wallet, with a promise of doubling what was put in. This is accompanied by another push notification stating that users have won a contest of some sort to be chosen for this “benefit” of having their Bitcoins doubled.
@TuneTalk kena hack ka pic.twitter.com/b67NBQfrPc
— Muhd Khairin Najmi (@muhdkhairinajmi) August 19, 2022
Tune Talk has not yet said anything on its social media channels on the matter at the time of writing. But a customer service personnel has confirmed that this is a scam, as you might expect. It’s not exactly clear just yet what is going on, but it looks to be that the telco’s push notification server has been compromised.
@TuneTalk – siapa hack korang ni? i miskin no bitcoin to give. pic.twitter.com/mRuxPxJkQp
— jay (@jayspresso_) August 19, 2022
As far as scams go, this is about as textbook as it gets. Earlier this year, we saw something similar happen with the Bored Ape Yacht Club Instagram account, which got hacked. The hacker then used the account to post a fraudulent link to have victims transfer their NFTs over to the hacker’s wallet. Something similar happened to verified Twitter accounts two years ago as well. The parallels are clear, despite it being done with push notifications on the Tune Talk mobile app.
@TuneTalk sekejap ada line lpstu takda line. Kena hack ke apa? Sebab this is too good to be true. Tapi dalam inbox dan noti app tunetalk. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/3jC74mAmZO
— D'sein™ (@dmfhusaini) August 19, 2022
The icing on this unfortunate cake is that today happens to be the 13th anniversary of Tune Talk. Strange present from the hacker aside, it’s interesting that they went for Bitcoin rather than Etherium, considering the NFT trend. Granted, following the crypto crash, the former is currently more valuable than the latter. But as usual, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
