Hi, thanks as always for reading TechCrunch. We want to discuss something important.
An increasing number of scammers are pretending to be TechCrunch reporters, editors, and event leads, contacting companies while falsely claiming to be our staff. (Here’s a list of our real staff.) These impostors use our name and reputation to mislead unsuspecting businesses, which upsets us as well as you. We’ve noticed a rise in emails questioning if someone works for us, indicating this is happening more frequently.
This isn’t isolated to us; fraudsters exploit the trust linked with well-known news brands to gain access to companies in the media sector.
Common schemes involve impostors posing as our reporters to obtain sensitive business details from unsuspecting targets. We’ve observed scammers adopting actual staff identities, making standard media inquiries about a company’s products and requesting introductory calls.
Savvy recipients sometimes notice email discrepancies that don’t match our legitimate employees’ credentials (see a list of fake email addresses below). However, recently, some impostors mimic our email conventions, making it harder to distinguish between real TechCrunch employees and fake ones.
These schemes evolve quickly; bad actors continuously refine their tactics, mimicking reporters’ writing styles and referencing startup trends in their attempts. Furthermore, victims of phone interviews tell us these fraudsters use the opportunity to extract more proprietary details. A PR representative informed Axios that someone posing as a TechCrunch reporter raised suspicions by sharing a scheduling link.
Why these actors are doing this is uncertain, but it’s likely they’re seeking network access or sensitive information. Former Yahoo colleagues suggest these attempts align with a persistent threat actor using TechCrunch impersonation to facilitate account takeover (ATO) and data theft, targeting cryptocurrency, cloud, and tech companies with various pretexts.
To verify authenticity, if someone contacts you claiming to be from TechCrunch and you have doubts, don’t just accept their word. We’ve made verification straightforward for you.
Check our TechCrunch staff page. It’s the quickest way to confirm if the person is a TechCrunch employee. If their name isn’t there, you’ve got your answer.
Even if a name is on our staff page, but the request doesn’t align with the employee’s role (e.g., a copy editor showing keen interest in your business), it might be an impostor trying to deceive you.
For further verification, contact us directly to ensure the request’s legitimacy. Contact details for each writer, editor, sales executive, marketing guru, and events team member are available in our bios.
If unsure whether a message is genuine, our staff offers alternate communication methods available in their official bio pages. Use these to confirm authenticity.
While it may be frustrating to double-check media inquiries, these impostors count on you skipping this step. By verifying, you protect your company and help preserve the trust journalists need to perform their roles.
Thank you. Here’s a list of recent TechCrunch impersonating domains not affiliated with us:
email-techcrunch[.]com
hr-techcrunch[.]com
interview-techcrunch[.]com
mail-techcrunch[.]com
media-techcrunch[.]com
noreply-tc-techcrunch[.]com
noreply-techcrunch[.]com
pr-techcrunch[.]com
techcrunch-out