Welcome to the World of Crypto? Strange Scammish Activity, this Time from Huobi Pro
Maybe it's just part and parcel of the cryptocurrency industry, but it seems like I am getting an ever-increasing stream of emails (and texts) that seem like they are part of some kind of shady activity.
Suspicious Activity
A phishing boat heads for home in the evening sun...
About once a week-- sometimes more often-- I get some kind of message that makes little sense. Generally, I am asked to "take action" to "complete" something I have never heard of, in the first place. Maybe it's a phishing attempt; maybe someone is trying to set up a fake account using my email address... who knows?
Or maybe this is a clever but rather alarming and invasive form of advertising? If so, it certainly served to make me not want to be any part of the organization.
In this case, I got a (seemingly legitimate) email from Chinese crypto exchange Huobi.pro giving me a temporary verification code to "complete the setup of my account."
Suspect because... I've never actually been on that exchange's web site!
Not the First Time
As I said, stuff like this seems to happen all the time. Well... rather frequently, to say the least.
The golden tones of the late evening sun...
Maybe it's the nature of the beast... since a lot of cryptocurrency activities are so "transparent," various forms of identity hijacking attempts might be more commonplace in this field.
I've even had a couple of text messages over the past six months... somehow my number was the two-factor authentication contact for some site I'd never heard of.
What makes this all "noteworthy" is that prior to my involvement in cryptocurrency, such "mistaken" identity emails and texts were a once-a-year occurrence (IF that) connected mostly to message board communities I might have been a member of.
How about YOU? You ever get "odd" email like this-- not just your typical spam? Does it seem like identity theft attempts, or a strange type of "advertising?" Would you be alarmed if you got such a message? Have you ever acted on such a message? If so, what happened? Do you think the cryptocurrency industry draws a higher rate of sketchy activity than other fields?Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 171212 23:07 PDT
Yes, @denmarkguy, I just posted an article about some unsolicited offers to invest in BTC investment platforms that I received via social media in the last week. They started their ambit by chatting, and they seem too nice to be true. I don't start talking to randoms online, for any reason. My inbox is currently clogged up with phishing spam. Thank you for posting to raise awareness :) https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@katyclark/unsolicited-social-media-advances-to-buy-into-btc-trading-platforms
Not really . I haven't experienced such activity till now .
Super intelligent post, thank you for taking the time to create and share. love to read you post.but these kind of posts do make it easier, followed and upvoted.
great creativity .Useful for all @denmarkguy
Great tips as always.
i followed you and upvoted your post.
Thanks.
This is the issue with company’s selling people’s data and no ethics or thought is put into the risk they put people at by doing so. Are there laws supposing to protect the consumer, kind of. Do they get followed? NO, its more profitable to not follow the rules. Even more so when you can just pay small fine vs how much they made or start another company and do it again.
There is a local scammer in my area that can call you 3 or 4 times a day with robot calls changing its phone number by 1 digit every time. Always same robot voice and always similar but slightly different product it wants to sell. Despite the fact this person should be fined $2,000 per call they get away with it scout free. Phone number is stolen. Not enough of a crime is being committed for resource to be spent on tracking this person down.
I had an email address that I used for a couple of years when looking for a job. In end it was unusable. That email address associated with someone looking for a job had been sold so many times I could get dozen “job” offers in a day for stuff I never applied to.
If your area code is known for being cryptocurrency heave in usage or your information is sold and tagged as someone in cryptocurrency you darn bet someone with malice intent is going buy and try and profit off this.
It could also just be random trying to phish since so many people are jumping onto the bandwagon.
I got a fake Coinbase e-mail phishing for my login credentials, claiming it was a report of an Ethereum transfer approval.
I have had spam emails but mostly as an advertisement only. But in any case, we must be very careful on what we are dealing with. I would never get myself caught by these scam. Thanks for the awakening @denmarkguy!
Yes. Several months before I received an email telling me my new email account has been created.
I was a little scared because I didn’t knew ignora this was a hacking attempt. But I tried to take advantage of this
Since my email was the recovery email for this account I tried to take control of it, if I remember well I couldn’t do it because of the security questions but at least I could delete my own email as the recovery email of this weird account.
I just wonder, ¿How long a trail of visible crumbs have you been leaving behind you thru the years, while you've been filling so many captchas through novelty faucets to earn new/easy free token$ across cryptoland? LoL
I haven't received any mysterious email so far and I wouldn't be too worried at your place just run a strong antivirus + I don't think that crypto attract weird virus, not more than porn!