Because you take security very seriously, you want to know what happens in your cryptocurrency wallet at any time.
- ❔ Are you receiving tokens or NFTs you haven't purchased?
- ❔ Are any of your crypto assets being transferred?
- ❔ Is there any suspicious activity you must take care of immediately?
Setting up wallet transaction notifications directly to your email is straightforward and free.
This free feature will allow you to be informed and quickly react to any undesired activity that may be suspicious.
In this article, we will analyze three transaction notifications that were sent to our email inboxes:
- ✔️✔️ One expected transaction notification.
- ❔ ✔️ One unexpected but benign transaction notification.
- ❔ ❌ One unexpected and malicious transaction notification.
✔️✔️ Ethereum Wallet Token Send Transaction Notification
The transaction shown in the picture below belongs to a token swap we have made in one of our Metamask wallet accounts.
Because we have set up email notifications, we have received an email notifying us of a token 'send' transaction.
Nothing suspicious here. This is a transaction we have initiated.
How to Setup Ethereum Wallet Transactions Notifications
To setup Ethereum address change notifications, you need to register at etherescan.io
As described in the Etherscan Watch List Page, the Watch List feature tracks addresses of your choice.
It notifies you via email whenever incoming or outgoing transactions involving the listed addresses occur.
Setting up a Watch List is straightforward; more details are on the Etherscan Watch List Web Page.
❔ ✔️ Phantom Wallet Bening Balance Change Notification
Similar to the Ethereum Watch List notifications, other blockchains allow users to set up Watch Lists and receive 'In' and 'Out' transaction tracking emails.
For example, see below a balance chance notification sent by Solscan.
In this case, this is a transaction we were not expecting, but it happened to be a bulbapp.io content tip.
Similar to (but not the same) Publish0x, in Bulbapp, content creators earn rewards for their content and can also receive tips from other creators.
How to Setup Solana Wallet Transactions Notifications
To setup Ethereum address change notifications, you need to register at solscan.io
It is the same process as with etherscan.io, so we will not discuss it here.
Still, creating an account and setting up transaction notifications is a very simple process.
❔ ❌ Phantom Wallet MALICIOUS Balance Change Notification
However, what is sent to our cryptocurrency wallets is not always benign.
For example, see below a balance chance email notification sent by Solscan.
This is a transaction that we did not expect. We have received a 1 JTO but don't know what 'JTO' is.
But that's no problem. We can quickly find out by clicking over the 'JTO' solscan.io link in the email.
(Note that we first verify the link URL by hovering over it with the mouse. Once we are assured that it comes from a trusted source, which in this case is solscan.io, we click over it)
That link leads us to solscan.io, where we can review the 'JTO' details and determine what this transaction is about.
(Spoiler alert: We immediately know this is an unwanted and malicious NFT drop to our Phantom wallet. Please consider increasing your digital and crypto security and safety knowledge to spot any threats quickly.)
The information presented at solscan.io shows a 'Memevibz' NFT airdrop from a profile with a very low SOL balance.
This information leads us to believe this is just a phishing scam: These phishing scams tend to be repetitive, so once you have seen and understood one, you become 'immunized' to similar threats.
At this point, we open our Phantom browser wallet and verify that we have received the malicious Memevibz NFT, which Phantom has already flagged as suspicious and paced under the NFT Hidden Collections section.
As you can appreciate, similar phishing NFTs have already airdropped to our wallet: Bonkmas, Memevibz, Memenerko,...
If you receive such an NFT, we advise you not to do anything with it. Let it stay in the 'Hidden Collection' section and read this Phantom NFT Phishing scam article.
In the article, Phantom explains NFT airdrop scams and how to recognize them.
But, for educational purposes, we have visited the phishing website using a disposable PC and disposable Phantom cryptocurrency wallet so you can visualize what this phishing scam looks like and learn from it.
The NFT Phishing Scam
We proceeded to click over the 'Claim My 10.0M BONK' link (which is something you should not do) and connect our disposable Phantom wallet.
Upon wallet connection, we got a message stating, 'The wallet is not listed in the Whitelist. For Free Claim you must log in with the account with the token sent to you'
We get this message because the scammers have probably done some on-chain analysis and identified our legitimate Phantom wallet as a profitable target.
The Phantom account we used to click over the 'Claim My 10.0M BONK' link and connect to the phishing website has nothing of value and is not interesting to the scammers.
They want us to connect our legitimate and valuable Phantom wallet.
An important point is that the scammers use amygdala hijack to induce greed and urgency in their victims.
While we stayed on this phishing website, we continuously got messages declaring that several wallets had already claimed 10.0M BONK tokens (a6a...ab6 Received 10.0M Bonk, 113...c7E Received 10.0M Bonk,...)
The scammers want their victims to act quickly and without thinking. The subliminal message is: Look how many wallets have claimed the 10.0M BONK... act now before it is too late and there is no more BONK to claim...
This way, using the subliminal Amygdala hijack, there is a much higher probability that the victim clicks over the link and signs any malicious transaction that the scammers use to wipe the victim's account of any valuable asset.
An amygdala hijack is an important factor for scammers because otherwise, anyone who takes the time to do even small research will notice the following:
1- Scrolling down the website will show some important signs that this is just a poorly designed website, which is a sign of a disposable phishing website (the scammers do not want to spend time and effort on a website that most probably will be blacklisted and taken down within a short time).
Note the Latin text in the picture below. It is some default text that the scammers have not bothered to change to something meaningful.
2 - None of the alleged team members' social links (Twitter, Discord, Instagram) work. And that is a clear sign that 'Steph Jobs', 'Andry Moray', "said Ed' and Laila Ed does not exist, and this is just a phishing website.
Receiving wallet transaction notifications is a useful feature to be informed. of incoming tokens or NFTs to our cryptocurrency wallets.
Also, the notifications are useful to inform us of any token or NFT being sent from our cryptocurrency wallets.
We know that you take crypto security and safety very seriously and your cryptocurrency assets are very well protected, but setting up notifications does not take much time.
You may be glad sometime in the future that you took 5 minutes NOW to set up notifications.
Congratulations on completing this 5-minute digital safety power-up.
We hope this short article has helped increase your digital safety knowledge and awareness, and the 5 minutes read was worth the time.
We will expose more scams, so stay tuned if this topic interests you.
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