Why Technical Knowledge Alone Does Not Protect People From Scams.

[Hazink]

the bybit example is the best illustration of this, a $1b operation with dedicated security teams, and the attack vector was social engineering on a developer, not a technical exploit.

technical knowledge narrows your attack surface. it doensn't eliminate the human layer, and the human layer is always the softest target.

Social engineering is an underrated form of scam and hacking. It reduces your intelligence level to zero. Once the person is able to penetrate and convince you to trust him or her, you will neglect some of the measured security flaws, which ordinarily you know the danger of doing something you are asked to do that will cost you your fortune in most cases the person have to realize how stupid they were after they have been hit.

[Hardyrobust]

the bybit example is the best illustration of this, a $1b operation with dedicated security teams, and the attack vector was social engineering on a developer, not a technical exploit.

technical knowledge narrows your attack surface. it doensn't eliminate the human layer, and the human layer is always the softest target.

Social engineering is an underrated form of scam and hacking. It reduces your intelligence level to zero. Once the person is able to penetrate and convince you to trust him or her, you will neglect some of the measured security flaws, which ordinarily you know the danger of doing something you are asked to do that will cost you your fortune in most cases the person have to realize how stupid they were after they have been hit.

This form of attack is Very common because the attacker looks for away to steal there victims credentials either by first gaining there trust or they leverage on there weaknesses. The best way to avoid this kind of scam is to always get the latest news about the latest scam , by so doing we can be aware of some of the latest tricks that  hackers or scammers are using. So attackers can easily penerate anyone organisation or system through social engineering attack.

[Kelward]

Technical knowledge is a plus for Bitcoin investors but it is not a necessity that you must have deep understanding about it's knowledge before you can succeed as a long term holder. I believe that majority of Bitcoin investors only knows about their wallet security and how to buy and sell their coins, they don't see any need to be dissecting what happens to the Bitcoin that they are sending or receiving on the Bitcoin network, what matters is that their transactions are successful.

If technical knowledge were important for Bitcoin transactions I doubt that the adoption will be where it is today. Most of us are operators of technology that we don't know about their technicalities, like using AI, operating computers and driving a car, people leave technicalities for those that it is their jobs and use the technologies for their needs.

[Catenaccio]

Technical knowledge is a plus for Bitcoin investors but it is not a necessity that you must have deep understanding about it's knowledge before you can succeed as a long term holder. I believe that majority of Bitcoin investors only knows about their wallet security and how to buy and sell their coins, they don't see any need to be dissecting what happens to the Bitcoin that they are sending or receiving on the Bitcoin network, what matters is that their transactions are successful.

Personal traits are most important for helping people away from scams because careful people will do things in their careful ways while careless people will do it carelessly. If a senior Bitcoin developer like Luke Dashjr was hacked and lost a lot of bitcoins, there are other people who perhaps have technical knowledge but likely less than Luke, are still very possible victims of hackers and scammers.

Having technical knowledge is very good, it's a plus but it does not decide whether you will be scammed or not be scammed. In the end, your practice decides the result and personal traits like carefulness or carelessness is very important.

[Royal Cap]

Well it is good to have technical knowledge, but the mindset of not jumping to conclusions or understanding the psychology of scammers is actually more important. Even great IT experts empty their wallets or bank accounts due to a little carelessness or overconfidence. Fraudsters prefer to play with people's minds rather than hacking technical systems, where they suddenly show big greed or fear of hacking. So to me knowledge and mindset are equally important.

[Yablee0]

I respectfully disagree that they're totally different. Scam and hack operate in different methods but their end result is the same and this make them identical. Whether someone trick you (scam) or break into your system (hack) the goal is to move your coin from your wallet without your real consent. Both scammers and hackers exploit the weakest link in your security chain. For scammers, you're the link but for hackers, the system is the link. In both cases, your coin is gone. Trading and gambling have different expected value math. Although, saying wallet hack is not a scam is technically correct since wallet hack does not automatically mean coin stolen.

You're correct. The both of them are two different means in which funds is being taking from someones wallet without the person in question fully consenting it, but the underlining fact is that the goal has been achieve which is lost of funds or assets. However, in as much as the both has differs meaning but accomplished the same goal, let ensure that everything that can ensure us of our safety from being scam or hack is been put in place because the rate of which people are losing their assets this days is becoming something else so to speak.

[uchegod-21]

Truly, having good technical knowledge about Bitcoin will go a long way in helping you identify possible areas scammers and hackers can attack from.

Many people got scammed because of ignorance; they left noticeable loopholes open for thieves to exploit. Indeed, technical knowledge is an added layer of security for investors.

Other non-technical means could simply be carelessness. This applies to people who understand the technical side of Bitcoin but choose to pay less attention to it.

We can also add excessive trust, which can lead someone to disclose their seed phrase and in the process, draw unnecessary attention to themselves

[Pablo-wood]

Scamming technique keeps advancing and for technical knowledge to remain relevant ahead of this scamming tactics consistent knowledge acquisition is required. It is not enough to have basic technical skills or static knowledge and expect to escape advanced scamming approach. Some persons without technical knowledge have never been scammed because they manage their greed level and avoid things that doesn't seem clear or too good to be real. But for technical gurus who understand how most project work under the hood the need to stay updated to avoid been take unaware.

[Fiasem20]

Understanding how wallet works, and how signature and blockchain transactions work is perfectly ok, but it doesn't prevent you from being manipulated. So, feel free to give your 2 cents on this discussion.

You don’t have rely only on your technical knowledge in other to protect yourself from scams,both technical and non technical knowledge are essential.The best you could do is learn the minor scam tactics that you think it’s outdated and stay updated on current ones.The minor scams that most crypto enthusiasts think are outdated are only rebranded by those scammers so that it would look new but if you’re knowledgeable about the ones that have been existing you would figure out.You may have the technical knowledge to protect yourself from scams but if you aren’t sensitive enough to dictate deceptive thing you may be vulnerable to scam.

[YellowSwap]

This thread came about because of the conversation I had with my friends yesterday. At least one of my friends stated that most people get scammed because they don't know much of technical things.

I can partly agree with him, as indeed, not knowing much, or not knowing about technical things can make it easier to be scammed by someone.  However, there are also many cases where technical skilled individuals still fall victim to fraud.

So, if technical knowledge is not enough what else is needed? Imo, what I think is needed are: critical thinking, emotional control, patient and healthy skepticism, because scammers mostly succeed because they explore human psychology rather than technical weakness. therefore,  greed, trust, fears, urgency and overconfidence are some of the common tools used by scammers.

Understanding how wallet works, and how signature and blockchain transactions work is perfectly ok, but it doesn't prevent you from being manipulated. So, feel free to give your 2 cents on this discussion.

I completely agree

I know every technical information about Bitcoin, and this have nothing to do with my emotions, it's why I still make many mistakes that cost me a lot of money.

Been technically expert doesn't mean you can't be scammed, it also doesn't mean that you have total control over your emotions and even if I am wrong what about the act of been disciplined all the time?

It's only a god that can always do something right without any mistakes in sight, and even as a god it's not 100% accurate to not the wrong decisions at times.

[Razmirraz]

When it comes to the world of cybersecurity, particularly when it comes to crypto assets and blockchain, technical knowledge acts as a primary shield. But basically, the biggest vulnerability of users is not in technical ignorance, but lies in psychology and emotions. The reason why emotional and cognitive protection is more crucial than just technical understanding is because cases of direct blockchain hacking are very rare because the underlying cryptographic system is very strong, so fraudsters target users by using social engineering techniques to manipulate their victims emotions.

Technical knowledge is like a thick steel safe, it will be useless if the owner deliberately opens it for fraudsters. I agree with you, users should think critically, healthy skepticism, emotional control, patience or emotional brakes are the main foundations of security. If this point is mastered, then users will no longer rush into making decisions because their mindset will automatically adopt "if something sounds too good to be true, it's probably a scam" or no one offers a free lunch without expecting anything in return.

[crwth]

This reminds me of a scam that was done to me recently, where someone called me and pretended to be a Google employee support. And I was surprised because I accepted something with analytics, and I thought that was the trigger that they had, and it just became so weird because he sent a support thing that he maybe input, like his name to be included in the subject email. Not sure if it's possible to do that, and that's what happened next: he invited my email to the workspace, and that's even weirder.

He said that I have accepted or something with a data migration of my account, and that's just BS. But the way he did it was really convincing. A lot of people might have been scammed in this way. This is worrisome.

[Sammye3]

Technical knowledge could seem useless when there is greed and obsession.

This is the tool that many scammers use to maipulate the minds of victims, many like the idea of multiplied income that they fail to think about the consequences of freebies.

Some with Technical knowledge would know about scams like this but still choose to enage, maybe to acquire the little profits before the scam scheme ends or just to get some reassurance.

[Cookdata]

Scamming technique keeps advancing and for technical knowledge to remain relevant ahead of this scamming tactics consistent knowledge acquisition is required. It is not enough to have basic technical skills or static knowledge and expect to escape advanced scamming approach. Some persons without technical knowledge have never been scammed because they manage their greed level and avoid things that doesn't seem clear or too good to be real. But for technical gurus who understand how most project work under the hood the need to stay updated to avoid been take unaware.

Svaming techniques doesn't not advance, rather people that understand technicals learn better how it work and use it on people that don't learn about Bitcoin technicality. You see a person that likes Bitcoin, want to buy Bitcoin but don't even know how to secure their seed phrase, some of them doesn't even know the difference between hardware wallet and software wallet, some will say it doesn't matter before you get started but not kidding with you, they all matter.

Technical knowledge could seem useless when there is greed and obsession.

This is the tool that many scammers use to maipulate the minds of victims, many like the idea of multiplied income that they fail to think about the consequences of freebies.

Some with Technical knowledge would know about scams like this but still choose to enage, maybe to acquire the little profits before the scam scheme ends or just to get some reassurance.

I'm not sure about your first paragraph but I don't think one can be technically inclined about Bitcoin and be greedy. Learning about Bitcoin technical is also learning how to keep away from been greedy. If you learn that there is nothing like free Bitcoin, and only could be buy, by the time you see a person doing giveaways about Bitcoin, you will not think twice before you block the person. Most times, greed ensue when you knows nothing about something.

[MusaMohamed]

I'm not sure about your first paragraph but I don't think one can be technically inclined about Bitcoin and be greedy. Learning about Bitcoin technical is also learning how to keep away from been greedy. If you learn that there is nothing like free Bitcoin, and only could be buy, by the time you see a person doing giveaways about Bitcoin, you will not think twice before you block the person. Most times, greed ensue when you knows nothing about something.

When people learn about Bitcoin from fundamental to technical, they will easily understand that Bitcoin is not a "quick rich" asset, and it is not a Ponzi too. When people understand these things, they will not be scammed by anyone, any project that tries to give offers like "give me money, our project with products around Bitcoin will make you rich very quickly".

It's like very basic financial knowledge and most of us can understand it very easily. Bitcoin is not a Ponzi, and anything promises too good to be true offers, get rich quick offers, is scam.

https://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/bitcoin-is-not-a-pyramid-scheme/
https://www.lynalden.com/bitcoin-ponzi-scheme/

[MusaPk]

This reminds me of a scam that was done to me recently, where someone called me and pretended to be a Google employee support. And I was surprised because I accepted something with analytics, and I thought that was the trigger that they had, and it just became so weird because he sent a support thing that he maybe input, like his name to be included in the subject email. Not sure if it's possible to do that, and that's what happened next: he invited my email to the workspace, and that's even weirder.

He said that I have accepted or something with a data migration of my account, and that's just BS. But the way he did it was really convincing. A lot of people might have been scammed in this way. This is worrisome.

This is equally important to keep our self updated with such stories because scammers also tried to convince us that they are right person and launch attack once we are convinced that they are what they saying they are. Paying attention to such attack strategies are important because if a human got compromised then all cyber security barriers will be worthless. My friend got scammed and lost money in his account after he was convinced by scammer that he is calling from bank, my friend passed all data including OTP, PIN etc and made the job easy peasy for the scammer.

[Hazink]

Well it is good to have technical knowledge, but the mindset of not jumping to conclusions or understanding the psychology of scammers is actually more important. Even great IT experts empty their wallets or bank accounts due to a little carelessness or overconfidence. Fraudsters prefer to play with people's minds rather than hacking technical systems, where they suddenly show big greed or fear of hacking. So to me knowledge and mindset are equally important.

That ability to play with people's minds, which most of these scammers have, is great too. Some are overlooked. Some of the recent and common attacks that affect great figures are social engineering, which their tech skills don't save them from once the scammer is able to buy their trust. It's easier to convince them to do whatever they want, and they won't even see it as the wrong thing.

[Jasmyne]

To me I believe that what you don't know is more than you. If one is not informed he or she will be deformed because information is power. Scammers are psychological in nature join with the information the know, so they read there subject reactions then from there observation they then come to a conclusion of what and how to penetrate into the person. Before now I use to think they are using charm on people, bit came to understand that not all of them do that.

Scammers can easily manipulate gullible persons, and since they are gullible, they can easily mess with their brain. People need to be very skeptical and tactical also because it helps prevents an individual from acting impulsively, it makes you to be able to verify informations very well before taking any actions and also having knowledge too about some scam activities will go a long way in preventing scams.

[uchegod-21]

To me I believe that what you don't know is more than you. If one is not informed he or she will be deformed because information is power. Scammers are psychological in nature join with the information the know, so they read there subject reactions then from there observation they then come to a conclusion of what and how to penetrate into the person. Before now I use to think they are using charm on people, bit came to understand that not all of them do that.

That is why no one should overlook any information or aspect of Bitcoin that could give scammers and hackers the chance to take advantage of them. Scammers are opportunistic; once they are given the opportunity, they strike.

Technical knowledge is very important.
Psychological knowledge is very important.
Communication skills are important.
Being smart is very important.

One cannot rely on technical skills alone to avoid scammers, as scammers use every means to scam people. Just be knowledgeable and smart.

[sunsilk]

Having critical thinking is important because you'll question things that are obviously wrong in your understanding.

When you get to see the little difference why things are that too obvious for you to notice and it's too good to be true, that will create your mind with a critical thinking.

It's a way to verify and not trust matters easily which is a vital part in surviving from these attempts of hacks and scams that we encounter daily.