Importance of Real-time Tracking & How to Stay Safe from Online Scams - Explained by Blockchain.com

Social media can be a useful way to connect with others, stay informed and express yourself. However, the recent news also highlights the fact that hackers try to exploit social media security holes to their advantage.

Twitter experienced a significant security breach when some of the world’s most widely followed Verified Accounts — including those of Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Bill Gates and Elon Musk — started posting content linked to a crypto scam. 

The Twitter security team removed most of the fraudulent Tweets but unfortunately not before some people were persuaded to send bitcoin to addresses being shared by the perpetrators. An important fact to note in this online scam is that Blockchain.com wallets were not used in this scam .

By using the Blockchain.com Explorer, anyone can look up the balance of the addresses the attackers used. As all bitcoin transactions are publicly viewable, anyone can track the scam in real time. At the time of this writing, over $117,000 worth of bitcoin from 401 transactions were sent to the following two addresses: (addresses are hyperlinked below)

Address 1

Address 2

Caution is the name of the game. Blockchain.com has released a note which states ' Treat all offers of investment advice, mining opportunities, unofficial giveaway chances, or any ‘get rich quick’ scheme with the utmost caution. Blockchain.com will never offer these ‘opportunities.’ Any official cryptoasset airdrop we conduct will only occur directly in the Blockchain.com Wallet or Exchange to verified users in the Airdrop center'.

If one spots or suspect a scam, one can report the profile pages to the relevant platform (in this case Twitter) and inform the Blockchain.com team too. The company aims to help remove fraudulent scams and profiles. Blockchain.com's support team conducts all customer communication through our Support Center and will only respond on its verified social media accounts.

Keep yourself + others safe:

• Never share your recovery phrase with anyone — especially over social media.
• Avoid contact with any Facebook group, page, or profile claiming to represent Blockchain.com or our support team.
• Report any suspicious activity to our Support Center, as well as the social media platforms themselves

Email Verification: Verifying your email address allows us to send login codes when suspicious or unusual activity is detected, to remind you of your wallet login ID, and to send bitcoin payment alerts when you receive funds.

Set up Two-Factor Authentication Enable two-factor authentication via SMS code, Yubikey, or Google Authenticator to further protect the wallet from unauthorized access.

Write Down Your Backup Phrase: It is the key to ensuring users' access to respective funds if one forgets his or her password .

Two Techies Working To Solve India's Urgent Social Media Problem- FAKE NEWS

The Fake News trend on Social Media has been there for a while. But, the world really took a notice of the situation during America's recent Presidential elections where it was alleged that fake stories on Facebook helped tip the balance in a particular candidates' favour. If you thought, America is the only one suffering from the fake news fiasco, you're deeply mistaken. The whole trend has actually been plaguing the rest of the world as well and has even entered the largest democracy on Earth, India.

Two Indian techies have decided to control the fake news scenario before it gets out of hand. The Bengaluru duo, Bal Krishn Birla and Shammas Oliyath, have built a website called check4spam.com that will help detect fake messages that are being widely shared on WhatsApp and Facebook. The site checks a particular story/message on the basis of both the research and investigation done by the check4spam team along with some volunteer users.

A self-funded project for now, check4spam is working with a vision of providing unconditional service to humanity. It's mission is to make life easy for the common man and trouble for the spammers. According to their official website, with check4spam, the duo have taken upon themselves to educate people in India that fall prey to the fake messages on social media, and then end up circulating those messages.

With the internet usage in the country increasing at a rapid pace, it is vital to curb the menace of fake news as soon as possible as many of the internet users in the country find it difficult to differentiate authentic sources to fake or malicious onesies. Further, there are several threats of hoaxes, click bait or Trojan horse-style software built in order to steal /phish information from a user’s device.

The website, check4spam, verified a particular piece of news by:

1. Contacting the person/organization mentioned in the post
2. Doing an extensive search, both online and offline, to find any further fine information about the news

The company has even set up a WhatsApp number wherein people can send in their messages for fact-checks. According to them, they're currently getting as many as 100 messages a day for verification.

The check4spam.com website, which gets half a million page views a month, supports messages that are text-only, image-only, and contains both text and image. The platform is also crowdsourcing spam message detection by asking social media users to report the spam messages that they find out themselves.

So, if you detect a news, story or message which you think doesn't add up, you know where to check it now.

9 Things You Should Never Share Or Post On Social Media

Social media has become a way of life for a majority of us. It is where we go when we're happy, sad, bored or frustrated. It is where the lines between introverts and extroverts are blurred. It is where people from all ages, gender, religion and sexuality can voice their opinions. While social media has for sure given us a platform to pour our hearts out and share what's going in our lives with the rest of the world, unfortunately a certain percentage of social media users have crossed the line of sharing and over-sharing. The recent Kim Kardashian Paris robbery has once again sprung open the debate on online privacy and security. In order to make sure that you don't end up in the category of being an over-sharer, here's how you can find out:

1) Vacation Plans

If you have a habit of announcing your vacation plans online even before boarding that plane, it is time to change to that. You can let everyone know about your vacation once you're back by uploading the pictures of your wonderful vacation. Till then refrain from having a vacation countdown or letting people know whom you're going with, where you're going to and for how long you're going to.

2) Home address/ current location

This is a strict no-no. Sharing your home address or current location on social media is almost similar to inviting trouble by keeping the front gate of your house open. Make sure your location feature is off on all your social media accounts.

3) Your Relationship troubles

Washing your dirty linen in public is never a good idea. Human relations are complex. While one day you might be having a good day, there could be days that the boat could be a little rocky. So, it is better to refrain from sharing your relationship troubles on the Internet and providing fodder to all the gossip mongers.

4) Winning lottery tickets

Picture this, you just won a huge amount of money courtesy a lottery, and your immediate response was to share this news with everyone on your social media platform. You might feel that your good days are here, but the minute you step out to collect your lottery money you end up getting kidnapped again. Yes, this has actually happened and is not a scene out of a Bollywood movie. So, better be safe than sorry.

5) Statements that can be used against you later

Always remember what you put out on social media is going to be there forever. So, be careful before making a strong statement against someone because it can very well comeback to haunt you later. In fact, there are a number of companies that do a background check of their applicant's social media platforms before hiring them.

6) Luxurious Living

While a lot of people do it unintentionally, showing off your cash, luxurious items, cars, mansions etc. can end up being an easy research for a robber. So, evaluate your past social media platforms updates and see if you're unintentionally showing off your hard-earnings. And well, if you're doing it intentionally, well it is time to stop right away.

7) Family issues

Your family issues don't need to make the headlines of your social media newsfeed. Keep your family life as private as possible for the betterment/safety of you and your family.

8) Nude/Explicit contents of you

While all these social media platforms promise their users that they have the best privacy features at play, there are hackers that can always bypass all these privacy and security hurdle and use your private information/pictures against you. So, be very careful before sharing your nude/initiate pictures with anyone on your social media platforms.

9) Bank details

This one is easy. Posting your bank details on social media can become an easy access point for hackers to ease their way into your accounts and finally your money. So, under no circumstance should you share your bank details online.

[Top Image-Shutterstock]

6 Things you must know before downloading WhatsApp Gold

Well, if you have got an invite to upgrade your green and boring WhatsApp to a Gold and sophisticated one, sadly you have been tricked. And, if you haven't, beware, you might be next in line. For people wondering what WhatsApp Gold exactly is, here's a detailed breakdown about the same. 1) Branded as an 'exclusive version' Since exclusivity always sells more, the app has been branded as an 'exclusive version' of the original app. According to the messages received by various current WhatsApp users, 'WhatsApp Gold' will not be available to all WhatsApp users and can only be installed via an invitation. 2) Users have to click on a website to get the Gold version Once a user receives an invitation for the Gold version upgrade, they're asked to visit the website, www.goldenversion.com, and click on the link given for the Gold version to download their App. 3) Celebrity App for celebrity users The invite for the app claims that 'WhatsApp Gold' is to be used by only 'big celebrities'. Further, it also boosts about the extra features that the Gold version comes with. The extra themes apparently include ability to change and choose WhatsApp themes, send 100 images all at once as compared to the current 10 images limit, free calling, video calling ang much more. 4) Hacker's Day Out According to tech experts, the invite is a way by which hackers are stealing your phone data and keeping a close track of all your movements. Once you click on the website given and start downloading the program, the website will end up infecting your precious phone with malware, which will possibly lead to hackers stealing your important data and tracking all your activity and movements. 5) Previous Scams Involving WhatsApp Does the name, WhatsApp Plus, ring a bell? Yes, it is the same royal blue colour version that was doing rounds of the social media a few years ago. This was another WhatsApp related scam that garnered major eyeballs prior to WhatsApp Gold. Such has been the frequency and the level of these scams that WhatsApp has even included a special disclaimer about these in its FAQ section. Warning about the WhatsApp Plus App, the company came forward with the following warning for its loyal users. "WhatsApp Plus is an application that was not developed by WhatsApp, nor is it authorized by WhatsApp." "The developers of WhatsApp Plus have no relationship to WhatsApp, and we do not support WhatsApp Plus. Please be aware that WhatsApp Plus contains source code which WhatsApp cannot guarantee as safe and that your private information is potentially being passed to 3rd parties without your knowledge or authorisation." 6) WhatsApp policy on upgrades In order to make the users aware about such scams, WhatsApp has even made an effort to let WhatsApp users know about its Upgradation policy notifications in detail. According to it, the app will never send its users a text message to upgrade or download another app, in fact, it will only communicate them any Upgradation notification over official points of contact like sending an email on their registered email ids etc.