Phishing is a process when someone attempts to obtain your confidential information, such as your passwords, your credit card number, your bank account details, or other information protected by the Data Protection Act. It occurs when an attacker, masquerading as a trusted entity, dupes a victim into opening an email, instant message, or text message. The recipient is then tricked into clicking a malicious link, which can lead to the installation of malware.

Phishing scams in which hackers pose as trusted figures to trick people into handing over passwords are getting increasingly sophisticated and are more and more frequent. 

Tips to prevent the phishing attacks:

1. Identify Suspected Phishing Emails. Some qualities identify an attack through an email, social network, SMS, etc.:

• They duplicate the image of a real company.
• Include sites that are visually almost identical to the real business.
• Copy the name of a company or an actual employee of the company.
• Promote gifts, rewards or the loss of an existing account (asking you to change your password).
• There is a suspicious email address or website address.
• The link to a genuine website takes you somewhere else.
• There are spelling and/or grammatical mistakes like the inappropriate use of capitals or exclamation marks and formatting errors, etc.
  
  

2. Enhance the Security of Your Computer

• Common sense and good judgment are as vital, as keeping your computer protected with a good antivirus to block this type of attacks.
• You should always have the most recent update on your operating system and web browsers.

3. Never reveal confidential information unless you are certain that the person you’re telling is genuine, and even then ask yourself if they are entitled to the information.

4. Check the address of websites you visit as it may be obvious by looking at the Address box that the site is not genuine. 

⚠️Our website has an SSL certificate, which you can see in the browser bar when visiting our page.

The best way to prevent phishing is to consistently reject any emails or news that ask you to provide confidential data.

What you should do if you have clicked on suspicious link?

1. Change your password. If you suspect you’ve become victim of a phishing attack, you should change your password immediately. Malware is often embedded within a phishing link as it will harvest and store this data for an attacker. If you’ve entered any personal information, you should change these details as soon as possible from an uncompromised machine. This will apply to all online accounts such as email, social media and banking. Also, we suggest you do not use the same password for different types of accounts.

⚠️How to choose a good password - click here. 

2. Scan system for malware with anti-virus software. If an error message pops up notifying you that you cannot run the scan as you’re not connected to the internet, ignore this. You will still be able to run a scan offline. Depending on your level of technical expertise, you could conduct the scan yourself using a reputable anti-virus software program, or you can take your device to a professional to make sure it’s thoroughly cleared of any potential malware.

3. Blocktrade strongly advises you to set up a two-factor authentication, as this will increase the security of your account. 

⚠️How to set up 2FA - click here.

What will Blocktrade do?

We will immediately report such attacks to the responsible authority, whether they come in a form of emails or via social media. We constantly work on improving our platform's security, if we see suspicious activity, we may take additional precautions to prevent unauthorized access. Blocktrade has always upheld the highest security standards and protecting our customers is our core value.

If you think this is happening to you, write us an email to [email protected]. We will check it out and if we find out it is indeed a phishing site, report it, therefore, preventing it from ever showing up again.