A sponsored ad on Google that appears as a website link for Sony’s blockchain Soneium is actually a well-hidden crypto wallet drainer, according to Scam Sniffer. 

The blockchain security firm said in an Oct. 22 X post that its team found an ad when Google Search for “someium” produced a sponsored link to a malicious website that included a wallet drainer.

“Searched for Soneium on Google, clicked a phishing ad,” it added. “Phishing always happens when you’re not paying attention, even if you mistakenly spell ‘soneium’ as 'someium.'” 

Source: Scam Sniffer

Cointelegraph couldn’t replicate the results of the search. Scam Sniffer shared the claimed phishing link with Cointelegraph, which used a domain suffix different from Soneium’s website and appeared as a simple and unfinished landing page for a British-based radiology service.

Scam Sniffer told Cointelegraph the website’s creators used specific techniques to hide the malicious page from Google.

“It’s hard to see it unless you are targeted, and that’s why Google couldn’t know [about] it,” the firm said.

Google did not immediately respond to questions about the alleged phishing link.

Soneium is an Ethereum layer 2 blockchain from Sony Block Solutions Labs, a joint venture between the tech conglomerate Sony and blockchain firm Startale Labs, that went live on its testnet in August.

Earlier this month, Scam Sniffer reported that over $46 million worth of crypto was stolen from 10,800 victims of phishing scams in September.

It added over $127 million worth of cryptocurrencies were stolen from investors in the third quarter of 2024 and that Ether (ETH) wallets were the biggest target of crypto phishing attacks.

In late April, Scam Sniffer said that over $4 million had been stolen in a span of a few weeks from users who fell for malicious phishing websites promoted on Google Search.

Scammers had nabbed domain names similar to the URLs for crypto brands and protocols, albeit with slight changes that made it difficult for users to identify that they’d clicked on a malicious link.

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