[Warning] Even the official links aren't safe anymore.

[dzungmobile]

As wise man once said "Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins". 

He is a wise and careful man but who is he? 

He's Andreas Antonopoulos and the first time he said about that is in Israel.

It's featuring by Andreas and he exactly said:

"Your keys, your Bitcoin. Not your keys, not your Bitcoin."

Bitcoin glossary

Or, as we in the IBA like to say:

If you don't have a private key, you don't have Bitcoin.

If your bitcoins are held in a 3rd party hosted wallet, you don't have Bitcoin.

If your bitcoins are in a hybrid wallet and you have no wallet backup, you don't have Bitcoin.

If you don't know what kind of wallet your bitcoins are held in or whether you control the private keys, you don't have Bitcoin.

If you don't even remember which wallet your bitcoins are held in or where it is, and your plan is to contact the Bitcoin Corporation to tell you which wallet you've opened and restore everything for you, you don't have Bitcoin.

If you have a wallet backup and password and everything is good, but in your will you have not specified details on how to access the bitcoins... You may have Bitcoin, but if something should ever happen to you, your family doesn't have Bitcoin.

If you believe you have Bitcoin, there's a decent chance you don't have Bitcoin.

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[Vaculin]

Thanks for the awareness OP but yeah, I also believe that even official links are not completely safe so one should still exercise with caution. And the fact that the site is giving you a free money without any deposits, well that’s odd. That alone is already a red flag. I have not experienced this but I think the Houbi exchange has issued an explanation about that. Try to visit again their site and probably you can see some reviews same to what you experienced, that will answer your doubts about houbi exchange.

[TimeTeller]

Thanks for the awareness OP but yeah, I also believe that even official links are not completely safe so one should still exercise with caution. And the fact that the site is giving you a free money without any deposits, well that’s odd. That alone is already a red flag. I have not experienced this but I think the Houbi exchange has issued an explanation about that. Try to visit again their site and probably you can see some reviews same to what you experienced, that will answer your doubts about houbi exchange.

Also, doubt the legitimacy of the request if it is too-good-to-be-true offer.
Even official channels have their black sheeps working inside trying to milk naive customers.
Just exercise your common sense, and if you are not very sure of your action, try to consult the community.
This forum alone have valuable members who are serious in busting scammers, and will try to assist you in any way they can.
This is why for me, this forum is like a hidden gem waiting to be tap by most crypto users, if they are not yet a member here.

[traderethereum]

Thanks for the information @OP.
But instead of contacting the site via Telegram, I will contact the representative via email because, after the hacking case on Huobi some time ago, hackers will still try to cheat Huobi users in many ways.
Telegram is the perfect place to get potential targets that they deceive and maybe someone has already been deceived through Telegram.
I will think twice about contacting a Huobi representative via Telegram because scammers are already using Telegram and we don't know or have difficulty distinguishing between the official Telegram from that site or a fake Telegram created by hackers.
They could get members in the Telegram group so that the target believes they are Huobi's representatives on Telegram.

[Baofeng]

It's obvious a fake site @OP, so it's not the official link. But I do agree that everyone is not safe on the world that we live in crypto. Everyone can be deceived by this scammers as they are good at impersonating this site and it looks like it's the very official site.

So lessons here is that even if we thought that the link official, we will have to double or triple check everything as once we fall for it, there is no coming back. So it's good that you are giving warning to everyone here, just sort of wake up call or gently reminder for us as we might be the next victims here.

[savetheFORUM]

No it's not a clone because I have app running on my smartphone as always, like I've said I am already a member of their official telegram group, even if it's clone it won't never direct me to the official telegram group, but this opened up two link, one is the official telegram and the other is the telegram channel asking for my recovery seed.

If that's the case, the hackers must have messed up with the source code of the platform and placed an extra ref tag that opens up two links by clicking on the official link and users are redirected to the scammer's telegram account where he is pretending to be the officials and scamming people out of their money. This must be reported and they should check all the links and refs in their source code and rectify all of them if they are compromised.

All in all, free things are bad, many people are able to believe the link because its from the official platform itself, if you are able to doubt that I did something wrong, it shows that if you are 100% of the link you visiting you will also have given up your recovery seed.

As they say, there is no free lunch. So, people need to understand and remember such things that no one will give us $1,000 USDT for doing nothing and there must be a catch behind that and they shouldn't just give away their private keys or seed phrases just like that.

[libert19]

Would usually go to Twitter/Discord to find official links of particular platform, however recently handles on these channels get frequently hacked and scammer change 'official' links soon after, myself was recently phished similar way.

What's the way? Now, check for links on multiple social medias of that platform, previously it used to be only 1 (mostly Twitter), and hope not everything is hacked in single go.

If it's something popular, there will be other people cautioning you, too.

[Zee27]

When we advice and warn newbies on here about clicking on random links, we always end them advice with finding official links to everything, including software for PCs or apps for smartphones, but today I screamed out loud, saying...

  it wasn't supposed to be the official link 
I planned to sell my BTC on the Huobi exchange, and I am not new to this exchange at all, I know about their official links, including their Twitter account, telegram, and discord channel, but something new happened.

I login to my huobi account as usual and I got a message that they stop the BTC deposit for some maintenance until further notice, cool and acceptable, but I was curious to know when the deposit will be back, so I click on their official telegram link.

Before you ask why the link when I am not new to the exchange, I joined too many telegram channels and scrolling through them to find huobi telegram seen annoying so I went through the exchange link.

https://i.postimg.cc/zfRvgh2H/Screenshot-2023-09-25-09-00-42-874-com-android-chrome-edit.jpg

Here is what popped up after clicking on the link

https://i.postimg.cc/zXJkFDrG/Screenshot-2023-09-25-08-58-53-919-org-telegram-messenger-edit.jpg

They are trying to give me money, that I don't work for, $1000 USDT, and the funny part is the official telegram channel do open up as well, and it's the old popular Huobi telegram channel that I've always used, now this crap is asking me to insert my recovery seed to claim this free $1000 USDT.

For the fact that I click on the official Huobi telegram group, this is enough to confuse some people to insert their recovery seed, like what the hell? Coming from the official link? Like I share this to educate mostly crypto beginners, even if it's a messiah that comes asking for your recovery seed, you will be a fool to have trust them, do not trust any body with your recovery seed, it's yours and it should be yours only and privately.

Peace ✌️

Isn't there a method via which you can test for the authenticity of the exchange links before going further? Exchanges needs to implement this. I mostly use Bitget for transactions and the sorts and they have a method via which you can verify links, staffs etc.  

[Broadanbig]

This should serve as a warning to newbies and other members who like leaving their assets to centralized exchange. Centralized exchange can not guarantee their own safety not to talk of investors funds and assets. Huobi should be amongst the top 5 world known exchange but yet they had suffered hack. This should be a lesson to people holding or using centralized exchange for savings.

I have this feelings that most of this big time hacks always have the hands of an insider leaking out information and also a regular pattern being used by the exchanges repeatedly also makes it porous for a breach of security codes which paves way for hackers venturing or targeting that exchange to succeed in their act. From the looks, that telegram link was planted by the hackers after they gained access to their site.

Lastly, it should be known that your 12 or 24 key phrase is your personal property and at such should be guarded with utmost caution. Do not give anybody your keys otherwise you stand loosing your assets to scammers. Remember "not your keys, not your coins".