"Unfortunately, the peer-to-peer sector can be seen as easy pickings for criminals looking for a quick financial gain from unexpecting investors "
An email sent yesterday by co-founder and CEO of Assetz Capital, Stuart Law, was the latest in a number of communications from the company warning customers about the deceptive website.
While Assetz Capital had found the website has copied ‘much of’ their own website graphical and text content for malicious purposes, they believed there was no evidence that the personal data of its customers had been compromised.
However it did state there was a risk to those that had been duped by and "engaged with" the fake website.
Assetz Capital stressed security was their number one concern and that their platform remains safe and secure for transactions, although they did suspend all withdrawals yesterday as a precautionary measure.
An investigation is currently ongoing into the cloned site and it has since been taken down.
Stephen Moss, founder and managing director of peer-to-peer lender, Sourced Capital, commented: “Unfortunately, the peer-to-peer sector can be seen as easy pickings for criminals looking for a quick financial gain from unexpecting investors and it seems as though Assetz Capital has been the latest target on their hit list.
"This potential breach is far from ideal in a sector where trust and reputation form a large part of the relationship between a platform and investors and luckily it seems to have been rumbled before any serious damage was done.
"Many peer-to-peer investors, in particular, will be very familiar with the processes involved when dealing with a platform and the security measures in place such as two-factor authentication. If at any point you aren’t being asked to provide the usual level of authentication, stop your activity immediately and make direct contact with your platform to be on the safe side.”
