Over the previous year, criminals have smartened up and started using the major global trends to con people and steal their money online. They have mastered the act of capturing people’s attention by monitoring hot topics to lure innocent victims to their messages hence gaining access to user’s systems. People follow instructions on spammed mails blindly as long us the topic matches with an ongoing current trend that is magically money making.
With this in mind, online criminals have been actively sending mail using this trending topics, coupled with logos, brand information, and very promising texts. Blockchain has seen a major revolution over the past year and this has made it one of the most targeted topics. A lot of spamming has been blockchain themed and the attempts on phishing have risen on blockchains and bitcoin wallets. Bitcoin and other blockchain themed currencies are going mainstream and many people are now having digital currency accounts. This has made it easy for criminals to use email addresses that scare or entice someone to open them, click on the deceiving links and even download the attachments.
We all tend to think that we have lots of knowledge on spamming and phishing and we will never fall prey to this kind of online crime. Blockchain themed tricks have been the major spamming and phishing goldmine in the third quarter of 2017 as reported by Kaspersky Security.
Examples of Blockchain themed bait
The bitcoin craze has made everyone want to capitalize on the bubble. Blockchain themed fraud schemes based on spamming and phishing has really taken advantage of the hype. The successful tricks used are not limited to the below but they include:
- Failed bitcoin or digital wallet login attempts notification
- ICO grants by downloading attachments
- Gaining airdrops by clicking on a link
- Cryptocurrency exchanges updates
- Fake cloud mining services
- Rent payment to specialized data centers
- Cryptocurrency addresses to purchase digital currencies
- Digital currencies trading software
- Blockchain themed workshops and training facilitations
Ways to Protect ourselves from falling Victim of Blockchain themed attacks
This has proven how study in current trends are among the most effective ways to target victims. Blockchain themed attacks are not likely to stop being used anytime soon hence the duty falls on us to increase our vigilance. This can be done by:
- Keeping up with the global tends in spamming and phishing is among the most important and effective ways to prevent fraud.
- Secure solutions that are highly reliable should be installed to block spamming and phishing attempts.
- All business organizations should use only the security solutions dedicated to detect and block malicious spamming and phishing attacks.
- Blockchain themes spamming and phishing attempts have created a necessity for people to critically check spelling of domain names since scammers use domain of well known brands to mask their phony domains.
- Avoid filling in personal details on social networks when not sure of the actual source of any advertisement. Scammers can use legit tickets but later redirect you to their site leading to social media fraud.
Blockchain themed spamming and phishing will be expected to increase for a long time to come. Scammers will not miss this huge opportunity to miss the chance to extract personal information and digital currency from unsuspecting citizens. Phishing sites are continuously using SSL certificates and fake domain names to gain access to personal data and hard-earned money. You can never be totally secure but you have to try your best to cover and protect yourself from increasingly wise scammers.
