My day was completely derailed yesterday after a scammer posing as a journalist nearly phished me via Zoom. He reached out for an interview, got me on a call, then asked me to share my screen to demo my product.

I keep screen sharing disabled in Zoom, so I had to restart the app. When I rejoined, system dialogs popped up, one of which asked for remote access. Huge red flag. 

I denied all permissions and ended the call immediately.

I spent hours checking my security settings, running a malware scan, and moving my crypto to cold storage. Found others who fell into the same trap with this scammer.

Scammers pose as journalists or investors, get you on a call, then trick you into screen sharing or remote access. If you’re not careful, they can hijack your machine and drain your funds.

My advice: treat any unsolicited Zoom call with extreme skepticism. Better yet, just deny them on sight.

First Draft Club

The Anatomy of a Farcaster Scam (and how to avoid them)

1. An account you’ve most likely never interacted with will send you a DC. 
2. The DC will compliment you or your work and ask for some type of collaboration, consulting job, testing, etc. 
3. If you reply, they may throw out a large number for compensation and ask to have a call to discuss terms. 
4. Usually, right before the agreed meeting time, something will go horribly wrong. The Google Meet or Zoom link they sent won’t work. 
5. You will panic. 
6. They will pressure you that if you can’t meet in the next few minutes, they will need to move to the next candidate on the list. 
7. But magically they will have a solution: they have another video conferencing tool that you can download right now and they know it works. 
8. You click the link without a second thought. 
9. You’ve been scammed and now they drain your wallet with malicious software. 

Let’s show a real life example.

If you are here you are a target. Please be extra vigilant! Your cute pro badge is a signal that you own crypto and have a funded wallet. You are perfect for these scams.

If you are here you are a target. Please be extra vigilant! Your cute pro badge is a signal that you own crypto and have a funded wallet. You are perfect for these scams. 

https://farcaster.xyz/pichi/0xfe1af460

Pi-chi.eth Artist /animeoutcasts
Hosting: /sakura /kyoto /anime-manga /farcasterunion

https://portrait.so/pichi

Pichi, what if I didn't buy pro because of my financial crisis?Will people keep on?Identifying me as a real person?

My worry is developers are going to use it as a signal and not having it will be a disadvantage in the future. 

I’m hopeful monthly is coming soon so people can try it and draw their own conclusions.