Protect Yourself From Cryptocurrency Scams On Telegram With Privacy Settings
Every day a new scam pops up, so keep yourself safe by making it so strangers can’t add you to random groups.
Since initially reporting on Telegram based Binance scams, fraudsters still haven’t let up.
The ploy is simple and familiar enough; steal people’s ETH by impersonating Binance customer support with a giveaway scam. The lie these fraudsters will tell you is, by sending ETH to an address you’ll get tenfold what you send in return. The admin in the chat will generally pin a message explaining there’s a prize pool to draw from and providing a link from for users to follow which, as it turns out, is a mirror image of other scams sites:
Inside the Telegram chat room activity is usually brimming with fake accounts, or bots, many of which show doctored images that are designed to proving the scam is legitimate, and attempting to trick random people who are added to the room to follow suit. One big honeypot.
The scam hinges on the fact that a number of people in the cryptocurrency ecosystem haven’t adjusted the privacy settings on their Telegram accounts to eliminate random adds. The way to do that is fairly simple.
When you open Telegram, click on the “Settings” button. It’s on the bottom right of the left tab containing the contacts, recent calls, and chats buttons:
Once you get to the settings menu you need to click “Privacy and Security” which will bring up a corresponding menu to the right.
Once inside the “Privacy and Security” menu navigate to the section under “Privacy” that says “Groups.” It should be third down from the top.
Within “Groups” is an option to toggle “WHO CAN ADD ME TO GROUP CHATS.” Make sure that instead of “Everybody” you have it set to “My Contacts.”
Assuming you have no scammers in your contact list, you can be sure that the random adds to scam groups, or any other groups on Telegram, won’t be a problem anymore. If it keeps happening, you know it’s one of your contacts adding you to these rooms; make sure to boot them from your contact list in short order.
Following these steps will keep you out of the wrong channels on Telegram.
If you’re a community manager, administrator, or just want to learn more about a useful tool, check out the MetaCert Security Bot for Telegram. While running silently in the background of any group, the bot monitors links and cryptocurrency addresses shared in the room; if any of those are connected to phishing scams the bot immediately warns members of your community before anyone clicks on the malicious resource.
Installing the MetaCert Security Bot for Telegram is free and easy, but you need to be an administrator to do it. If you’re an administrator who wants to keep their community on Telegram safe from scams, follow the instructions on this short video:
You can do more to stay safe! When you’re not chatting in Telegram, make sure you browse the web with Cryptonite, the free anti-phishing browser add-on for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. It even works with the dev build of Brave browser.
Cryptonite stops phishing sites in their tracks, and also provides a visual cue for cryptocurrency related resources in the form of a black shield that turns green. Cryptonite is also fine tuned to weed out scams on Twitter, with a specialized annotation system so you can tell legitimate accounts from impersonators at a glance.
By downloading Cryptonite you’ll be able to take part in the MetaCert Protocol Beta Program, where participants can earn a bonus on tokens they purchase to test the protocol.
If you want to find out more about how tools powered by MetaCert Protocol protect over 1 million members of the cryptocurrency community from malicious threats, you can get involved and join our Telegram community: https://t.me/metacert. You can also find out more about our blockchain project by reading out white paper and technical paper, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter: @MetaCert.
MetaCert Protocol is the new shield of trust for the internet.
MetaCert Protocol is decentralizing cybersecurity for the Internet, by defining ownership and URL classification information about domain names, applications, bots, crypto wallet addresses, social media accounts and APIs. The Protocol’s registry can be used by ISPs, routers, Wi-Fi hotspots, crypto wallets and exchanges, mobile devices, browsers and apps, to help address cyber threats such as phishing, malware, brand protection, child safety and news credibility. Think of MetaCert Protocol as the modern version of the outdated browser padlock and whois database combined.
