12:00am, 24 August 2023
TLP Rating:
Blocking investment and cryptocurrency scam websites
Along with others in the industry, CERT NZ has noticed many investment and cryptocurrency scam websites. Sometimes these are recommended to people from a search engine, from ads on social media, or via direct message on social platforms, including online dating.
With your help, we would like to prevent further losses by making it harder for people to access these sites and informing them about what these websites are doing.
What's happening
What this means
The Financial Markets Authority (FMA) puts out warnings for sites to be wary of if you are planning to invest.
If your business can monitor for activity to these sites, block them, and notify those who visited of the FMA's warnings, we may be able to reduce both the financial loss, and harm caused in New Zealand.
What to do
Mitigation
Here are some key steps CERT NZ recommends to prevent further financial losses.
- Subscribe to FMA warnings and alerts.
Warnings and alerts | Financial Markets Authority (fma.govt.nz) External Link
- Restrict access to those domains listed in the FMA alerts.
- Refer anyone visiting the scam websites to the CERT NZ Individual's Alert and FMA warnings regarding this.
The FMA site contains further information and links about safely investing and what to do if you have been affected.
We believe that some of the easiest ways you might be able to restrict access to those domains include:
- Protective DNS/DNS Filtering
- EDR block lists
- Web proxy block lists.
Further investment or cryptocurrency scam websites can sometimes be obtained by looking into what other sites are hosted on the same IP address (such as through passive DNS records). However, caution should be taken before acting on these to ensure legitimate traffic is not blocked.
At the time of posting the FMA are warning about the following websites due to their part in such activity:
CoinzHoldingLtd[.]com
AgroCuraLtd[.]com
Rapidtradereturn[.]com
Rapidtether[.]com
wpsmanage[.]com
Horizon-capital[.]ltd
Portaltradecapital[.]com
safe-trust[.]net
hsbcnz[.]com
wbroker[.]com
wilbysec[.]com
ratesfinder[.]co[.]nz
grampointclub[.]com
HoldingHeritageLimited[.]com
PSLUS[.]COM
capitalgoldinvestment[.]net
stakefunds[.]co
marketsradar[.]io
Rolvitrade[.]com
comparefixedtermdeposits[.]net
Bnpp-nz[.]com
bnpparibas-clientportal[.]com
bnpparibas-pc[.]com
Ariseinvslimited[.]com
accordinvestmentslimited[.]com
PTWealthManagement[.]com
PTWealthManagementLTD[.]com
hatchholding[.]net
quickpaylimited[.]com
DCMAtrading[.]com
soltechx[.]com
teamvalidus[.]com
sw-investment[.]com
magnitudefinancialgroup[.]co[.]nz
magnitudefinancial-nz[.]com
More information
If you believe you may have been caught up in one of these scams, contact your bank immediately using their official phone number or website.
Reporting the sites to CERT NZ can help us work to get them taken down. We can also pass the report to relevant agencies, such as Police and FMA to ensure a wider response.
If you require more information or further support, submit a report on our website or contact us on 0800 CERTNZ.
Report an incident to CERT NZ External Link
You can also report these directly to the FMA (Financial Markets Authority) to help them provide up to date alerts and warnings which in turn helps other New Zealanders.
Report an issue to the FMA External Link
For media enquiries, email our media desk at media@mbie.govt.nz or call the MBIE media team on 027 442 2141.