According to Foresight News, a scammer has reportedly stolen the identity of Peter Lauten from a16z to carry out fraudulent activities. The impersonator noticed that the real Peter Lauten had changed his Twitter username from 'peter_lauten' to 'lauten' at some point, and then claimed his old username. The issue was that the a16z website still linked to his old username, and some posts on the a16z Twitter account tagged the old username. This made it difficult for victims to identify the scam.
The impersonator tricked victims into installing a fake conference app called 'Vortax' on their devices, which was actually malicious software. One user lost $245,000 as a result of downloading the malware onto their computer. The scam highlights the importance of regularly updating online profiles and the potential dangers of downloading unfamiliar software.