Real Case: How Angler Phishing Scammers Exploited an Online Victim

Angler phishing is a type of phishing attack that targets social media users.

The victim will be someone seeking help, and the scammers, in most cases, will pretend to be customer service agents.
The scammers will try to convince the victim that they can help, but first, the victim would be asked to download and install some software, provide remote access to their computers, or provide login details...

A real angler phishing scam

Let's look at a real case of someone having a problem, asking for help online, being scammed, and losing a significant amount of cryptocurrency.
We cannot help the victim anymore by preventing the scam or educating the victim, but we can learn from the situation.
Because the more you know, the better you will be prepared to avoid scammers and even prevent angler phishing scams from happening to someone else.
This person, as explained below, was looking for online help on a problem with a cryptocurrency hot wallet and was contacted by a scammer pretending to be a customer service agent.
After winning the trust, the scammer asked the victim to click on a link to a malicious website, where the unsuspected victim provided the wallet seed phrase.
And because the scammer was the owner of the malicious website, the seed phrase fell directly into the scammer's hands. Who proceeded to drain the wallet.
It all started with a simple question, a request for advice, on a forum. Found by the scammer, which can be a person or organization who is constantly looking for this kind of situation and will jump into the opportunity to scam any unsuspected victim.
It is incredible how a simple request for information can lead to a disaster for the victim. 
This unfortunate person is probably intelligent and only needs more digital safety knowledge. 
Can you see how one lousy step leads to a significant financial loss - a real tragedy?

Would you fall for an angler phishing scam?

Be honest with yourself... Can you identify an angler phishing scam?
And imagine that you fall for an angler phishing scam for whatever reason. What would be the consequences for you?
Would it be a significant loss, or have you taken precautions to avoid having all your (eggs) crypto in the same basket?
Taking the angler phishing scam above as an example, consider the following:

• If the link 'https://cross-chainsupport.f-hx.com/portal/' looks legitimate, you must learn how to identify suspicious links. 
• If you click on the 'BRAVE LIVE SUPPORT' button before checking the destination address first, you should learn how to find the destination address before clicking on a link or button.
• If one single wallet contains most of your crypto portfolio, consider diversifying and moving some assets to a second or even a third wallet. But remember to choose the safest crypto wallet for your situation.
• And most importantly, if you would consider giving away your seed phrase, for whatever reason, you must seriously increase your crypto safety knowledge. Because you should NEVER use the seed phrase unless you need to recover a wallet, and even in that case of having to recover a wallet, you must take extreme precautions.

Article originally published at: https://www.publish0x.com/@Crypto-Safety-First