Beware of the opportunists

[Outhue]

It's a new day and I am sitting on my chair doing nothing than planning on how to find my next victim, nothing good is coming up yet and all of a sudden, a crypto exchange was breached.

To the likes of me this is a big opportunity, why wait around? I have my evil tool that gathered thousands of email address all I have to do is send bulk mail to all of them saying our exchange just got hacked and to remain on the safer side you should click on this link or maybe tell them to start submitting their recovery seed, I just need two people out of thousands to fall for it and I am in money.

Hackers and scammers are different breeds, some are opportunists, they don't hack or do the hard works, they just wait for the right time, when something happened to a crypto wallet company or crypto exchange it is always a wonderful opportunity for them to get the best of people.

When something happens to the exchange or platforms that you are using, make sure you don't overreact, especially when you have some money on them, few months ago when Coinbase had a breach I got a mail from Coinbase but fake, saying I should click on a link, and as someone who has an account on Coinbase I felt how easier it would have been to fell for such if I am new to crypto, it looked so genuine since the incident was still very fresh.

[Maus0728]

I feel like those exchanges should have the due diligence to report whenever there is a breach in their system because not doing so would implicate them as an accomplice to the actions of these scammers being able to get the emails of their customers. Thankfully I grew up in the Rickroll era, it made me careful of what to click especially if it is a link and it has a suspicious element to it like wrong spellings and weird timings. It is the holiday season after all, it is definitely a good time to be more wary of scammers because they know that more people are more distracted and those scammers are getting pressured to put food on their table to celebrate the holidays.

[ericagerb]

Good reminder. Opportunistic phishing after breaches is one of the biggest risks in crypto, especially for newcomers. Staying calm, double-checking sources, and never clicking links or sharing seed phrases is basic but still very effective protection. Thanks for highlighting this.

[lionheart78]

When something happens on the exchange we are using, and we have fund on it, the first thing to do is calm down and reach out to the customer support while waiting for the exchange's announcement. 

Always verify the source of the email if it happen that we receive one.  Do not click hastily and contact the exchange's customer support, verifying the email.  Phishers are always looking for something to exploit, oftentimes, they are successful in spoofing the email to make it look from the official mailing system of the exchange.  Be suspicious and alert whenever the mail requires us to log in to the link given. It is often a phishing site.  The best way is always to verify anything with the official support channel.  This way, we can avoid being scammed big time.

[betswift]

Good reminder. Opportunistic phishing after breaches is one of the biggest risks in crypto, especially for newcomers. Staying calm, double-checking sources, and never clicking links or sharing seed phrases is basic but still very effective protection. Thanks for highlighting this.

Also using platforms to pre-view the websites you would click on from the get-go.. Because it may be all that's needed.

[Hispo]

... it looked so genuine since the incident was still very fresh.

That is something I have noticed as well. Scammers who go for the fishing method in order to steal as much money as posible from their victims have learnt how to actively improve their fake emails through years or experience in social engineering. Their emails are not longer the obvious scams they used to be back in the early 2000s, not they are completely similar to official emails and notifications one would receive from exchanges and casinos.

That is why it is important not to panic, as you mentioned. People tend to commit their biggest mistakes when they are in a hurry and allow their feelings to take over their common sense, scammers know that and exploit their victims.

Also, they do not only use exchanges and casino breaches in order to fool their victims, they also try to convince their victims they have been hacked and compromising information about them could be sent to their family and friends, unless thousands of dollars in Bitcoin are paid, basic extortion.

[JoyMarsha]

This has been the way scammers operate, using the ugly incident that has happened to any crypto exchange to get their victims who would fall for their scam tricks, which they believe one out of many people will fall for. That's the reason why we have repeated cases like this coming from the side of scammers, because in their minds, they know that not everyone will dictate the multiple emails they sent out as fake, that they won't do their bidding.

[Smartprofit]

Bitcoin is a financial instrument that requires a lack of trust in third parties. This means that anyone working with Bitcoin must be paranoid (in the good sense of the word).🙋

In the past, I tried to understand the difference between a manager and an ordinary employee. It turned out that they have different types of thinking. A manager has strategic thinking, while an ordinary employee typically has operational-tactical thinking. The difference between these two types of thinking is fundamental. A person with operational-tactical thinking reacts immediately. This is precisely why someone with this type of thinking is a good performer.

A person with strategic thinking reacts with a certain time lag... They need to answer the question: "Do I need to perform this action or not?"

If we want to protect ourselves from scammers, we must cultivate strategic thinking. Then we won't fall for their clever tricks.🙋

[ColdLava40]

It looked so genuine since the incident was still very fresh.

Fear, that's just a 4 letter word that can cause many people to panic and make pretty bad decisions. In situations like this, they will already be on their hills, looking for ways to quickly get their money out of the exchange..

But wait, why leave them there in the first place? I guess only a few ask themselves that question.

At this point even a ping on their mail would trigger their next action. They won't think twice before clicking any link..they will at that moment think about only the possibility of saving their money from being lost.. unfortunately it will be stolen.

[Fiatless]

I feel like those exchanges should have the due diligence to report whenever there is a breach in their system because not doing so would implicate them as an accomplice to the actions of these scammers being able to get the emails of their customers. Thankfully I grew up in the Rickroll era, it made me careful of what to click especially if it is a link and it has a suspicious element to it like wrong spellings and weird timings. It is the holiday season after all, it is definitely a good time to be more wary of scammers because they know that more people are more distracted and those scammers are getting pressured to put food on their table to celebrate the holidays.

Some of these exchanges will want to keep security breaches secret to protect the reputation of the company. They might assume that they can mitigate the threat without involving customers. Clients should be contacted immediately if there are any security issues, no matter how negligible they might seem.

Scammers can take advantage of any opportunity that comes. And a slight loss of attention or lack of concentration could lead to severe losses. In this era of artificial intelligence, due diligence is necessary.

[mrust_mobile]

I had a few "too real" emails too and I was this close to click links in them. I am telling you these scammers are getting way smarter. It is not like the old days when they were dumb sending obviously scam emails. Nowadays they make it real. They probably get help from AI so they can fake it so well. AI must have helping them with the human psychology as well. I can't find any other reason for the quick development they had recently. It is like those scammers suddenly leveled up. From being morons to almost experts at scamming. We need to be more careful than ever. One missclick and your whole life savings will be gone. It only takes one missclick, don't forget.

Scammers probably have a huge dataset as well. Emails are getting sold in bulk on blackmarkets. They probably know which emails are connected to crypto exchanges so they can narrow their targets.

[Jewan420]

This is the basic thing of fraudsters, if you want to cheat someone, do not give him any other excuse, then he can be careful. Rather, take refuge in financial temptation to cheat or give financial threats so that he takes the wrong step out of temptation or panic.

Human intelligence does not always work the same way. Even an intelligent person makes mistakes, but that is at a difficult moment. Fraudsters try to find those difficult times when even the intelligence of an intelligent person starts to disappear, especially when faced with financial matters. This is basically the basic principle or basic practice of fraudsters.

[cr1776]

The advice seems to have been the same since at least 2010 with MtGox - don't keep your coins on an exchange.  Sure, send them there to sell or buy them and remove them immediately.  Many do seem to be a bit more secure now, but given the nature of bitcoin "a bit more secure" isn't enough.  Just use cold storage.

[Renampun]

Until now I sometimes receive emails trying to impersonate Binance saying that I need to change my password because it's been so long, but I just ignore emails like that because I already know the techniques of scammers like this, but I don't know whether anyone else has fallen victim to the phishing link or not.

and this is why it is important to understand security on the internet because we just don't know whether the email we have registered with the exchange is leaked or what, so we can potentially to become targets of these scammers. the most important thing is to always check the sender's email address, verify the link before clicking it, and always use two-factor authentication, and there is no need to panic easily when receiving information, always make sure that it is valid and not fake information.

[PrivacyG]

Here is the thing.  When you purchase something, you are supposed to at least know the very basics of that thing that you are buying.  Unless you are going to blind buy something, but in this case you are supposed to acknowledge all the consequences that may come with it.  I imagine you are already doing this very often.  If you purchase a book, you will read its description.  If you purchase a phone, you will look at its specifications.  If you go to a restaurant, you will look at the ingredients.

When someone purchases Bitcoin, if they do not do ANY research about it then there is no Safety and Security to expect.  Yes an Exchange may be hacked, yes some Bitcoin may have been stolen, but at the end of the day it is the responsibility of Bitcoin holders to keep up with the news and to know how things work around Bitcoin.  To not fall for this Scam what you have to do is only know the very basics of how Bitcoin works.  But things get even worse.  If you read the FIRST THING you see when you initialize a Bitcoin Wallet, which is that your Seed is ONLY FOR YOU and for NO OTHER EYE, you already know how not to be Scammed.  But people do not read the instructions, not even the most basic things and then they cry for losing Money.  I am sorry to say this but if you put your life savings in something you do not even understand the most basic thing about then it is entirely your fault when things go very bad in such a stupid way.

[Antona]

Exactly the breach itself is often less damaging than the phishing wave that follows they exploit the news cycle. If youre holding on an exchange during a breach, moving funds is fine but do it calmly and manually through the official app you already have. No rushed clicks

[sunsilk]

When you don't keep your funds in exchanges, you're not going to panic and that's why it's very important to be calm at all times. Those who panics are who they are targeting to receive and react on those spam emails.

But, if you don't have funds in any of them and you know that it's in a hardware wallet or an airgapped wallet, you'll not have any single thing to worry with.

Because you know that your funds are in panic and these are the typical scammers that spams our email boxes. Remember this quote that's very popular in the forum; "always verify!".

[SmartGold01]

This is the part where people do not always take records at because when you are newbie to space everything around could caused you to start panicking whereby you wouldn't know whether what happened is genuine or not but what they does is to quickly respond to any mail or messages that could appear to them immediately so that they can restore their lose or funds which was stolen from them. Have also heard numerous cases on those that usually claims to be wallet recovery team where you would be asked to submit your seed-phrase to help them restore their funds then they wouldn't know that they could dealing with scammers it self where their fund will be at risk and whenever any funds are being sent they could be the one to withdraw out the fund because already their seed are shared to them.

[Stalker22]

Keeping anything more than pocket change in an exchanges hot wallet?  Thats like leaving your house unlocked with a free stuff sign in your yard.  Cold storage is the only smart way unless you like the thrill of possibly funding some scammers lavish lifestyle.

And those opportunists?  Well, someone once said: "A smart man learns from his mistakes; a genius learns from the mistakes of others." I would just add: "A scammer just hopes nobody has learned anything at all."

[CryptSafe]

Scammers and hackers are all opportunists; they always wait to take advantage of any trend to exploit people who can not be able to control themselves out of the fear of not being a victim. I have come to realize that people actually get scammed most often whenever there is news or a rumour about a hack or something related to them in one way or another, because they either have funds there or are trying to get something out of greed or other scenarios that come up in that manner.

When things of this nature come, people are always frightened, and this is where scammers take advantage of, but the truth is this, when something funny of such happens, it is expedient that people should just be patient and not panic or do whatsoever that would cause them any harm. All they have to do is just be patient and wait for the official announcement from the organisation, such a thing happened for the next line of action, so they do not make any mistakes, as that would keep them safe and protected from any unforeseen event.