What Is Phishing?
Also known as: Phishing Attack, Crypto Phishing
In short
Phishing is a scam in which attackers pose as a trusted institution, app, or person to steal users' information, such as private keys, recovery phrases, and passwords, or to trick them into approving harmful transactions.
In the cryptocurrency world, phishing appears in many forms. The most common examples are fake websites that are exact copies of a well-known exchange or wallet, fake links promoted through search engine ads, urgent emails saying your account has been suspended, and social media accounts posing as support teams. The goal is most often to get the user to enter their 12- or 24-word recovery phrase.
Methods have also changed with Web3. Attackers use fake airdrop or NFT mint pages to get users to sign approval (approve) or signature transactions that grant unlimited spending permission over the tokens in their wallet. Another method is address poisoning: the attacker infiltrates the transaction history by sending small transactions to the user from an address that looks very similar to the real one, hoping the user will copy the wrong address in their next transfer.
To protect yourself, the recovery phrase should never be shared with any site, app, or person; no legitimate service asks for it. Opening sites from bookmarks, checking addresses in full rather than only by their first and last characters, reading the content of the transaction being signed, using two-factor authentication, and regularly reviewing and revoking token approvals you have granted all reduce the risks.
Last updated: · This content is for information purposes only and is not investment advice.