Have you ever been contacted by customer support on Telegram or Twitter asking you about your wallet or exchange account? Have you ever stumbled across a suspicious website that looks just like your regular exchange? These are all examples of common phishing attacks.
Phishing is the most common way bad actors steal funds in the cryptocurrency industry. Being informed and aware of some of these attacks will make your experience interacting with crypto a lot safer.
1. Never Share Any Private Information With Anyone
Never share any sensitive information such as your email address, passwords with anyone. The biggest take-home is that you should never share your recovery (seed) phrase. Without the recovery phrase, scammers can do little to your funds. As soon as they have your recovery seed, they have full access to your crypto.
2. Do not click suspicious links
Do not click any links or embedded URL on suspicious websites and emails as they can be filled with malware. You can use CheckPhish services to check if a URL is safe to open.
3. Admins or Customer Support will not Contact you first!
When seeking help online from Customer Support or Admin be aware of perpetrators. Remember to follow legitimate instructions displayed on official websites. Moreover, when having an issue, an admin will never start a conversation with you over Facebook, Twitter or Telegram and ask for your personal information such as recovery phrase. Most reputable exchanges and wallets have dedicated customer support emails ending in their official domain [email protected]
4. Be aware of third-party sites
Connecting your wallet to third-party sites is risky and makes you vulnerable to phishing. Do not attempt connecting with them before informing yourself of the right instructions. For instance, here is a guide on how to connect the DApps browser for Trust Wallet users.
5. Never trust alarming messages.
Reputable cryptocurrency companies will never urge you to submit personal information or to send funds to them or an outside party. Therefore, when such a message appears in your inbox, not in your spam folder do not open it or click any links, instead of block and delete such a message.
To conclude, it is each user’s responsibility to be safe in a crypto world. Scammers will always be out there and they will get smarter each day and develop new ways to steal funds and information from you. It is important for each of us to be vigilant and stay safe. Let’s not let the fraudsters win!