My Steemit Phishing Experience: A Thank You to those who helped me escape Unscathed

I have recently been out of commission here on steemit for a few weeks with a lot going on. Some of you who may follow my blog closely know that my account was hacked about two weeks ago. This was not a very fun experience and the timing was also not ideal, but let's face it, being hacked is never an ideal occurrence no matter the circumstances at hand.

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I want to help spread the word about all of the phishing scams going on around here lately in order to ensure that it happens to as few people as possible (ideally no one). These phishing acts are beginning to spread around like a wildfire, so it is our job as steemians to help one another in addressing this raising concern. Sometimes these scams may be blatantly obvious to pick up on, but other times not so much.

A hacker may attempt to steal your account by directing you to a steemit log in page that looks exactly the same as what we normally see when we login. The only difference being the URL, which usually we are not paying that close of attention to.

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Be careful what you click on and never enter your credentials into a place that you do not fully trust. I made this mistake and my account was stolen from me. Luckily, I was able to pick up on the situation rather quickly and I was able to recover my account, change my master key and obtain all of my funds back. I escaped from this rather unscathed, but this may not happen for everyone who's account has been compromised.

For the longest time, however, I did not think I was going to get my Steem Power back because every time I tried to remove the delegation I received an error code. I was so distraught about this whole situation for quite some time, until just this past Friday my funds were all back to normal (Pewww... huge sigh of relief there).

Be sure to never use your master key when logging into steemit. Store this key somewhere offline where it will be safe. A hard drive of some sort is probably the best overall option for this. Log in with your posting key and you will have the ability to post, vote and comment. If you need to use the internal steem market, then access your active key, just like you would your posting key, under the permissions tab, NOT your master key. If anyone has any questions about this, then shoot me a comment below and I will try to explain in further detail.

Before any of this had happened to me, I was really unaware of most of this stuff, hence why I was hacked in the first place. Now that I know how to keep myself safe, none of this should ever happen, at least I sure do hope so. I worked so very hard and invested my own money into the platform in order to get to the point where I was, and I thought it was all KABOOM... down the drain. I really did get lucky with recovering my account as quickly as I did and removing the delegation from the account that had hacked me.

I was really surprised that I had not heard or seen any content related to the phishing schemes that were and are still going around like crazy. This was definitely a large contributing factor to why I was compromised in the first place. @steemcleaners is a fantastic account to follow here to stay up to date on content related to hacking and scams.

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I want to take a minute to thank those of you who offered me guidance and help along the way during this horrific incident of mine. @acrange actually provided a message on my post saying not to follow instruction and the message was a confirmed scam, but I was too quick to act and fell for the scam before his message was even posted.

I followed up with @acrange once my account was fully recovered to ask for some more advice. Thanks again for looking out, I appreciate the warning and advice which you provided. I will definitely be giving unwavering support to you from here on out (along with all the other steemians I have yet to mention).

I also reached out to @khaleelkazi during this time because I knew I could trust him and also he seems to be quite knowledgeable about most everything that is going on here. He got back to me rather quickly and stated his sympathy for my situation and also told me what to do next. Thanks again for your continued support, I will always have someone's back when they have mine -- See you around my guy.

I also heard from @guiltyparties on my 'panic' post the day after my account had been recovered. He responded to my post with the URL for delegation removal. Thank you for providing your insights in a desperate time of need, I greatly appreciate this. Without your help, who knows what may have happened to my hard earned SP.

The very next day, I saw a post about recently hacked accounts here on steemit. The list was quite long and without any dismay @conradsuperb was listed among the 40 or 50 accounts which had been hacked (that day alone). Many of these accounts were totally compromised, but since I realized what I had dug myself into so quickly, I was luckily able to dig my way out.

@bullionstackers was the one who posted this article, so I figured I would reach out to gain some other insights which previous users may not have mentioned, or known. He was able to give, not only me, but many other steemians guidance about what to do NEXT. Along with @steemcleaners , @bullionstackers is another great account to follow to stay up to date regarding phishing scams here on steemit. Thanks again Mr. stackers, I can't thank you enough for your word of advice.

@patrice noticed one of my comments on a #steemcleaners post and got back to me saying that the delegation had been removed, which at the time I did not think was true because I kept getting back an 'error code' when attempting to do so. @patrice really gave me some hope and optimism that I would be getting my SP back. I thank you for reaching out and giving me some positivity regarding the state of my, at the time, lost funds.

To wrap things up, just be very careful as to what you click on, who you associate with and where you enter your passwords. Do not trust accounts that you do not know or that have reputation scores below 25. These are usually the accounts that have been hacked and are sending out these fake messages to steal people's accounts and hard earned money.

Be smart with your passwords and store them in a safe place that you are comfortable with. Be sure to never share your keys with anyone else, unless they are a close friend or family member and you have an intent to help them get started here on steemit.

This was an incredible learning experience for me, as I am still relatively new to this entire space. You never think it will happen to you, but when/if it does, it is such a terrible feeling-- let me tell you.

Stay safe my friends, and STEEM ON!!