Phishing sites have become an all-too-common part of the cryptocurrency ecosystem over the past few years. This is because of how difficult it is to prevent phishing in the first place. A new phishing site is targeting EtherDelta users. Considering how this platform has become pretty popular among cryptocurrency users, such phishing scams could have major consequences over the coming days and weeks.
EtherDelta Phishing Site Looks Pretty Legit
It is always disconcerting to see new phishing sites coming up in the world of cryptocurrency. The main objective of such sites is to fool users into believing the sites are legitimate and then robbing users of their money, data, or both. In the case of EtherDelta, some people were convinced that the fake site was the real thing. That is pretty surprising, considering the EtherDelta platform is designed to be fully decentralized and peer-to-peer.
While it is true the current version of EtherDelta relies on GitHub for most activity rather than people actively downloading the source code themselves, this also poses a problem. The fake version of EtherDelta tries to trick users by using the Gitlhub or Githulb domain names instead of GitHub. It is a small difference most people will not even notice in their address bar, even though it makes a big difference when visiting the fake version. After all, the phishing site will steal your money if you are tricked into using it.
This also poses a big problem for EtherDelta. Although this platform has a ton of potential and it provides a lot of trading markets one cannot find anywhere else, most people only use it through the GitHub page itself. The platform is the most convenient solution today, as it is quite easy to use. It also has no issues with scaling or completing orders in its current iteration. However, there is also an option to download the source code and run it locally, which effectively nullifies the threat of phishing sites altogether. Not too many people have chosen this latter option.
One way to bypass the phishing platform is bookmarking the official EtherDelta link through GitHub and only using that bookmark for trading purposes. It is a solid solution for those people preferring to rely on the GitHub-hosted version rather than use the source code itself. For most novice users, running the source code is far too complicated, even though it does not require any significant skills whatsoever. In contrast, this takes about an hour or so to set up at most and requires users to run the code either continuously or every single time they want to use the platform.
In cryptocurrency, convenience often trumps security first and foremost. That opens the door for criminals to take advantage of cryptocurrency users, either through phishing platforms or similar platforms. A lot of money has been lost to phishing scams in recent months and it looks like these schemes will only intensify as time progresses. The latest EtherDelta scam goes to show that phishing will remain a major threat in the world of cryptocurrency for quite some time to come.
In the end, it is unclear how many people will fall victim to this clear EtherDelta phishing scam. Given the recent surge in the popularity of this exchange protocol, it is not surprising to see criminals try to exploit novice users with phishing sites like these. We can only hope EtherDelta users will take the necessary steps to protect their funds and not fall victim to the fake versions of this platform. Now is also a good time to learn how to run the source code on one’s own computer or server for future purposes.
