Trick of giving 'Pi' to get the wallet key back

Some Pi players reported having their wallet keys stolen after participating in the 'Pi giveaway program' or 'buying/selling Pi at high prices' on social media. "After entering the 24-character wallet key, nearly 2,000 Pi mined in my wallet disappeared," said 60-year-old Hoang Hai, who has been involved in the Pi Network since 2020. Mr. Hai said he didn't know how to trade Pi, but saved the wallet key cluster to 'check Pi whenever needed' after being instructed by his son. Last week, he saw an ad on social media giving away Pi. Clicking on the link, he followed the instructions to enter the wallet key, causing the entire Pi amount to disappear afterwards. Mrs. Truong Hoa, 56 years old, almost fell into the trap of buying and selling Pi at a high price. Seeing someone on social media wanting to buy Pi at a price of 100 USD instead of 2 USD per coin on some exchanges, she contacted to sell half of the Pi she has. "Through messages, they sent me a link and instructions on how to transfer Pi, even suggesting a direct video call. Suspecting a scam, I didn't follow," Ms. Hoa recounted. According to Duy Anh, the administrator of the Facebook group about Pi Network with 160,000 members, the scam to steal Pi wallets has appeared since the project was still in the "closed mainnet" phase, meaning players could only trade internally with each other. "But when Pi goes online on 20/2 and can trade out, the frequency of fraud is increasing. Every day, dozens of related contents are shared in the group, I only approve typical cases," the person said. According to this administrator, in the past, the common method was that scammers posted saying they needed to buy Pi at a very high price, then deposited a small amount as a deposit, tricking the seller into transferring all Pi to them. "But recently, they have been 'investing' more, running ads giving away Pi on social networks like X, Facebook, or Google Ads to increase the chances of reaching their prey," Duy Anh commented. "To create a convincing feeling, they run fake interactions, as if many people have been given Pi." According to him, scammers often target the elderly, who are less knowledgeable about technology and digital currencies, as well as play on the greed of those who want to receive free digital currencies. According to Mr. Vo Do Thang, Director of Athena Management and Cybersecurity Training Center, the common method of stealing online accounts in general and digital wallets in particular is to send files or links containing malicious software, or to create a website with an interface identical to the official page, thereby tricking victims into entering important information. If they follow the instructions, they can "manually" install the malicious code and "surrender" their accounts to hackers. "When infiltrating devices, the malware will proceed to take over the account and withdraw all the money that users can't do anything about," Mr. Thang said. "The best way to protect yourself is to not follow instructions from strangers, be suspicious of all unfamiliar links, and refrain from clicking on links of unknown origin". Pi Network was launched in 2019, advertised to help participants own the Pi digital currency for free by checking in daily on the app "lightning tap". Vietnam is one of the markets with many participants "mining Pi". The project sparked controversy as it took nearly six years to "go live", allowing users to transfer Pi to other platforms for trading from 20/2.