Cyber fraudsters and scammers are already attempting to exploit last week’s launch of Meta’s latest social media venture, a “Twitter-killer” called Threads, to conduct phishing attacks and distribute malwares, according to analysis conducted by Veriti, a cyber security infrastructure startup founded by ex-Check Point execs, which launched out of stealth last year.
Veriti’s team said they had seen a surge in the creation of suspicious domains in the periods immediately before and after Threads launched, with more than 700 being registered around the world every day.
“These domains pose a significant risk as they can be used to deceive users, distribute malware and lure unsuspecting individuals into downloading untrusted versions of the app,” wrote Veriti marketing vice-president Yair Herling.
The Veriti team has compiled a list of suspicious domain lookalikes – all of which were registered on Monday 10 July – that use some variation on the Threads theme to trick users.
These include threads[.]ovh, threadsfollower[.]org, metathreads[.]social, threadsapp[.]shop and threadsinstagram[.]app. Many more are known to exist.
One example documented by the Veriti…