The imitators target companies with a false awareness of Techcrunch

Hi, thank you as always for reading Techcrunch. We want to talk to you quickly about something important.

We have discovered that the crooks usurted techcrunch journalists and tracks of events and reach out to companies, pretending to be our staff when they are absolutely not. These bad players use our name and reputation to try to dump without distrust companies. It makes us crazy and exasperated us in your name.

For the anecdote, it does not only happen to us; The fraudsters exploit the confidence that comes with information brands established to set foot in the door with companies in the media industry.

Here is an example of the most common diagram we have followed: the impostors imitating our journalists to extract sensitive commercial information from the targets without distrust. In several cases, as we know, the crooks have adopted the identity of real staff members, developing what resembles a standard investigation into the media on the products of a company and requesting an introductory call.

The recipients in lively eyes sometimes capture deviations in the email addresses which do not correspond to the identification information of our employees. But these patterns evolve quickly; The bad actors continue to refine their tactics, imitating the writing styles of journalists and referencing the trends of startups to make their locations more and more convincing. Equally disturbing: victims who accept telephone interviews tell us that fraudsters use these calls to dig into even more owner details.

Why are they doing this? We do not know, although a reasonable assumption is that they are groups looking for initial access to a network.

As for what to do on this subject, if someone reaches out to be techcrunch and you even have a doubt of knowing if they are legitimate, do not just believe him. We have facilitated verification for you.

Start by checking our staff page. It is the fastest way to see if the person who contacts you really works here. If the name of the individual is not on our list, you have your answer there.

If you see someone’s name on our staff page, but the job description of our employee does not lie down with the request you receive (that is to say that a Techcrunch Copy editor is suddenly very interested in inquiring about your business!), A bad actor tries to ward you off.

If it looks like a legitimate request but you want to go doubly, you must also feel free to contact us directly and simply ask (you can learn to reach each writer, publisher, sales director, marketing guru and member of the event team in our BIOS).

We know that it is frustrating to have to reconnect media requests, but these groups are counting on you, not to do this additional. By being vigilant on verification, you do not only protect your own business – you help preserve the confidence on which legitimate journalists depend to do their job.

THANKS.