image 2022 05 10 18 08 58Cheating, plagiarism, scam, and fraud are nothing new in the digital world. Since the dawn of the “digital era,” malicious activities have been a part of the landscape, and the methods have only advanced with time.
Like any other form of content, cybercriminals have stolen, misused, and wrongfully profited from web content, while Intellectual Property (IP) owners have suffered significant losses. Now that cryptocurrency has become mainstream, many scams have also emerged to exploit vulnerabilities.
Here are some online scams and how to avoid them.
Website plagiarism
Website plagiarism is the duplication of a third party’s website content. It involves copying and pasting the content or downloading the website and hosting it on a new domain. Website plagiarism is a severe issue, as it can lead to lost traffic and revenue for the original owner and security vulnerabilities for the user.
Plagiarism can be a paragraph or completely cloning websites. Copied websites appear legitimate while facilitating fraud, data theft, spyware installation, malware, etc. These cases can evolve into severe problems like large-scale hacking attacks. You can check sites like Copyscape, Plagtracker, and TinEye to help identify illegitimate websites. They search if other web pages have the same content and images.
How do fake website scams work?
Website scammers need two things to perpetrate a scam: a website that appears legitimate and users’ data. Scammers can perform unauthorized transactions, identity thefts, or even resell user data. These scams are primarily based on banking, pension, government, tax filing websites, and recently, cryptocurrency. These websites often ask for:
1. Banking details
2. Detailed personal information
3. Social security number
Many people underestimate the attention to detail in duplicated sites. Scams have evolved and are not bound to “win lucky draws” web pages. In some cases, the fraud schemes go as far as disabling the original websites. With very few distinctions from the original, these sites can be hard to spot.
How to identify cryptocurrency website scams
Cryptocurrency and marketplaces scams are dangerous and are not easy to track. With blockchain providing anonymity for transactions, many illegal activities prefer payment in digital currencies. As decentralized money gains popularity, scammers target people’s online wallets, identities, NFTs, and more by appearing as popular and high traction websites.
Here are two commonly used scams to watch out for:
Phishing crypto platforms
A straightforward method among scammers is to completely copy the layout, color scheme, and text of a popularly used crypto-related website. Some may slightly alter the font and the styling to make the fake website appear as an updated version of the original platform.
The website collects users’ information when they log into the website. The scammers use the user’s data to access their cryptocurrency tokens and authorize transactions. Users may never regain their login details and risk losing all the digital assets connected to that profile.
In addition to that, using these websites can cause other problems with background file downloads, clipboard hacking, and theft of digital assets and device data.
Clone cryptocurrency and NFT collections
The phishing method can also be applied to NFTs since they are on the blockchain. Rather than appearing as the original website, fake sites copy pages from a website and appear as legitimate affiliated projects. The NFT collection might appear valuable due to the affiliation but is likely a worthless counterfeit.
The cryptocurrency equivalent of cloned NFTs are pump and dump coins. They use false affiliation to make the project appear credible, luring people into investing in “honey pot” schemes that ultimately unravel from the backend. These “pump and dump” schemes are conducted in multiple ways but usually end with developers selling the tokens at the highest price point.
Eradicate scammers with REV3AL technology
REV3AL makes sure that your digital assets are under your control, using multi-factor techniques to protect against duplication and distribution. REV3AL technology’s multiple layers of encrypted protection can help keep you safe from scams.
With REV3AL’s incorporation of blockchain and non-blockchain technology, you can confirm the authenticity of a digital asset or an NFT through a simple multi-factor process via physical interaction on your device or the REV3AL platform. REV3AL allows users to authenticate their digital assets easily and quickly.
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