Bitcoin (BTC) scammers may be abandoning the cryptocurrency to focus on extorting money via prepaid debit cards, a new study suggests.

Revealing its findings in a blog post on December. 16, cybersecurity visitor Kaspersky Lab highlighted a growing trend in Brazil as an example of hackers' growing taste for prepaid cards.

Prepaid cards' international appeal

Specifically, a so-called "sextortion" scam — demanding a victim pay money to avoid compromising information about his or her private life going public — targets Acesso cards in the country.

"The debit cards in this particular sextortion scheme — Acesso cards — are sold in Brazil and work with the Mastercard system," Kaspersky explains. Equally such, coin gleaned from cards can exist spent anywhere Mastercard is accepted, the post continues:

"One of the features of these cards is that they are usable non only in Brazil, merely internationally besides. Perchance that's the feature that the cybercriminals in question are peculiarly interested in."

2 photos to steal funds

The Acesso scam works by hackers sending imitation emails en masse, which tell recipients to buy a prepaid carte in a store, load it with funds and photo both sides. Armed with a visual representation of the card, the hackers can and so spend the funds.

Whether the trend could ultimately lead to a consummate loss of interest in using Bitcoin amid scammers, however, is open to interpretation.

"It is however too early to say if prepaid debit cards volition supplant bitcoin as the new ransom currency of choice, or whether such letters are the exception rather than the rule," Kaspersky adds.

Meanwhile, cryptocurrency-related crime remains a major threat to internet users. In its latest annual summary of new threats, Kaspersky identified a total of over ii.2 one thousand thousand devices targeted past mining malware alone since November 2022.