Alert: Are You Safe or Being Phished?

One of the ways that online hackers and scammers try to get information from customers is through phishing. Be aware of fraudulent websites!

Medium: https://medium.com/gokumarket/alert-are-you-safe-or-being-phished-b99333c5ed9a

September 21, 2021 - Phishing is a form of fraud in which the attacker tries to learn sensitive information such as login credentials or account information through different means of communication, including emails, SMS texts, social media posts, and fraudulent URLs. Attackers will brand themselves and pretend to be GokuMarket in order to obtain sensitive information, such as passwords and 2FA and OTP codes.

How To Find a Fraudulent URL? 🤔

You have often been warned to mind the links you click. So here is a test. Would you click on https://www.gokumarkèt.com?

You’d better not. Why? Observe closely the ‘è’ in ‘gokumarket’, you will find it different. The link will not take you to the real GokuMarket. Instead, it will lead you to a phishing website, which will look exactly similar to your usual website, but instead will steal your data such as login credentials and other sensitive information. 

When receiving emails from familiar sources similar scrutiny should be followed. 

👋 Understanding Phishing Better

DNS and ASCII

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a fundamental pillar of the Internet. It is indeed responsible for converting domains and hostnames we find in web links (i.e., strings) into IP addresses (e.g., 192.168.1.1) which are ultimately used by Internet nodes to transmit and receive our messages. 

Punycode attacks 

Unicode that converts words that cannot be written in ASCII, like the Greek word for thank you ‘ευχαριστώ’ into an ASCII encoding, like ‘xn--mxahn5algcq2e’ for use as domain names. With Punycode, you can include non-ASCII characters within a domain name.

The Threat Behind the Punycode

The DNS works only with ASCII characters. These consist of the Roman alphabet (upper and lower case), numbers from 0 to 9, and some other special characters as a dot (‘.’) and dash (‘-’). The English dictionary can be entirely written using ASCII encoding, but this does not hold for all languages. 

For example, the URL: www.gokumarkèt.com. The landing page may look familiar, but the special character “è” in the URL and “gokumarket.com”  in the URL signifies that this is not the real ww.gokumarket.com. Beware, scammers can create fake websites asking for sensitive information to gain control of your accounts.

📣 How to Safeguard Your Account❓

Punycode attacks can take place by changing the website from abc.com to αbc.com. It mostly happens by email and website. But an attacker can also send the user link through any social media and could trick the user into downloading a rogue application that is similar to the application that the person uses.

✅ Here we show some simple tips or best practices that you can easily put into practice to reduce the risk.

1. Bookmark the URL of the websites 

The websites you visit often should be bookmarked and always accessed through it. Never click on random email websites. 

2. Mind your clicks! 

Before clicking on the unknown link confirm the destination address (e.g., email sender, rogue website).

3. Check Punycode encoding 

👉 Copy and paste the URL in the online Punycode-converter. 

👉 Put the cursor on the link and check the bottom left corner of the browser.

👉 If the domain (website) looks different from what you would expect, rewrite the domain in the address bar character by character and hit return. 

👋 How GokuMarket Keeps Your Account Safe

GokuMarket wants to provide the best security to our users not only on the blockchain, but also on the platform. To ensure that, we have taken the following steps:

📲2FA Authentication

Mandatory Google authentication code for withdrawal is activated to avoid any suspicious activity or harm to the users.

📱OTPs at Login

Users will be needed to provide an additional OTP sent on the registered email address while logging to their GokuMarket account.

📧 Change Email

To change the email users will need to provide Google authentication and Email OTP and withdrawal activity will be suspended for a period of time.

🚫 Withdrawal Suspension on Suspicious Activity

All withdrawal activity will be suspended for a period of time after any of the ‘change of password’, ‘forget password’, or ‘reset password’ activities. 

Should there be any suspicion from any users’ side, then we recommend to immediately contact the GokuMarket support team via live chat on the website or via support@gokumarket.com requesting that the account is suspended until it is securely verified.

About GokuMarket

GokuMarket is a European-licensed crypto wallet, exchange and marketplace provider, known as the one marketplace for the blockchain economy. With its global community just having surpassed 550,000 users and being top ranked on CoinMarketCap, the GokuMarket ecosystem offers solutions for both retail cryptocurrency investors and seasoned traders. 

GokuMarket keeps the community updated every time using different social media platforms and emails. Please report any GokuMarket phishing sites you encounter and if you have further questions please contact our support team. 

Stay connected with the cryptocurrency trends and get the latest updates by following GokuMarket on social media with Telegram, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Also, make sure to download & install the GokuMarket Android and iOS super app for quick & easy access.  

Be Alert & Stay Tuned With GokuMarket! ⚡

Regards,
GokuMarket Team

[2021-09-21]