Fake bitcoin core website at the top of duckduckgo #31602

issue thebignaught openend this issue on January 4, 2025

thebignaught commented at 7:39 am on January 4, 2025: none

Hello all,

If you search “bitcoin core” on duckduckgo.com the top search result is a fake bitcoin core website with the URL: btcore . cc

I haven’t actually visited the site but I am assuming it is offering malware downloads to the unsuspecting. Is there anything that can be done about this?

I have crossposted this also on the bitcoin-core github on the website repo.
1440000bytes commented at 8:31 am on January 5, 2025: none

I haven’t actually visited the site but I am assuming it is offering malware downloads to the unsuspecting. Is there anything that can be done about this?

Yes, downloads look malicious because I see different checksum for v27.0

You can report the search results: https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckgo-help-pages/company/contact-us
willcl-ark commented at 9:47 am on January 6, 2025: member

Hey @thebignaught, thanks for the report, here and on bitcoincore.org repo.

I this this issue will be best left open over there rather than in both repos, so I’m going to close here.

I have also reported the website as per @1440000bytes to duckduckgo and would encourage anyone else reading this to take 30 seconds to do the same. Reports could also be made to https://safebrowsing.google.com/safebrowsing/report_phish/ which DDG (and others) may? use.

I am not sure there is much else we can do besides reporting…
willcl-ark closed this on Jan 6, 2025
1440000bytes commented at 6:24 pm on January 6, 2025: none

I submitted an abuse report for related domains to cloudflare because its being used for DNS. They have forwarded the report to the responsible hosting provider (IQWeb FZ-LLC).

I see a warning now when I open this link in the browser:

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thebignaught 1440000bytes willcl-ark