Impersonators are targeting companies with fake TechCrunch outreach

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

We have discovered that scammers are impressing Techcrunch reporters and event guides and reaching companies, pretending to be our staff when they are absolutely not. These bad actors use our name and reputation to try to double non -Esperanto companies. It drives us crazy and furious us for you.

Anecdote, this not only happens to us; Fraudists exploit the faith that comes with established news brands to get their foot in the door with companies across the media industry.

Here is an example of the most common scheme we track: taxpayers who claim our reporters to extract sensitive business information from non -Esperanto goals. In several cases we know, scammers have adopted the identity of actual employees, creating what looks like a standard media survey of company products and asking an introductory call.

Sharp striking recipients sometimes capture discrepancies in email addresses that do not match the credentials of our actual employees. But these schemes evolve quickly; Bad actors continue to refine their tactics, imitating the written styles of reporters and referring to initial tendencies to make their pits increasingly convincing. Equally critical: victims who agree to call interviews, tell us that the fraudsters use those calls to dig for even more proprietary details.

Why are they doing this? We do not know, although an acceptable guess is that these are groups seeking initial access to a network.

About what to do about it, if someone gets to claim to be from Techcrunch and you have even the slightest doubt about whether they are legitimate, please don’t just take their word for it. We made it easy for you to check.

Start by checking our Staff. It is the fastest way to see if the person contacting you actually works here. If the individual’s name is not in our roster, you have your answer right there.

If you see someone’s name on our staff page, but our employee’s job description doesn’t square with the request you get (ie, Techcrunch -copy editor is suddenly very interested in learning about your business!), A bad actor tries you.

If it sounds like a legitimate request, but you want to make sure double sure, you also please contact us directly and just ask (you can learn how to get every writer, editor, sales executioner, marketing guru and a member of events in our BIOS).

We know that it is frustrating to have to do twice to control media surveys, but these groups calculate that you do not take that extra step. Vigorously about confirmation, you are not just protecting your own company – you help keep the faith that legitimate journalists depend on doing their work.

Thanks.