Cybercriminals Launch Flood of Fake Forex Platforms to Harvest Logins

Fraudulent investment platforms impersonating legitimate cryptocurrency and forex exchanges have emerged as the primary financial threat across Asia, with organised crime groups operating at unprecedented scale, according to the GBHackers report. The piece explains that these scams use social engineering to persuade victims to transfer funds to attacker-controlled systems, blurring lines between legitimate trading and criminal enterprise.

It notes that investigations, according to Group-IB, reveal that fake platforms are proliferating across Vietnam and neighbouring regions, with criminals exploiting weak KYB and KYC controls. The article highlights an August 2025 development in Vietnam when authorities dismantled a billion-dollar cryptocurrency scam involving the Paynet Coin platform, resulting in the arrest of 20 individuals charged with multi-level marketing violations and asset misappropriation.

It also covers regulatory pressure, pointing to Vietnam’s Circular 17/2024 from the State Bank, effective 1 July 2025, which imposes stricter corporate account requirements including biometric verification, and describes how the fraud networks use a central mastermind with specialised teams to manage victim onboarding, payments, and fake dashboards.