Recent thefts of crypto and phishing attacks on well-known crypto CEOs and influencers have led to the addition of new safety measures for users.
Coinbase, a crypto exchange located in the United States, has become the latest crypto wallet provider to offer transaction previews and blocklists in response to an increase in coin thefts.
On January 30, the crypto exchange said that it has added a new set of safety features to its wallet software, making it simpler for customers to detect and respond to possible fraudster behavior.
These integrations have a feature called “transaction preview” that shows users how their “token and NFT balances” are likely to change before they hit the “confirm” button.
The company has also launched token approval notifications, which notify users when a decentralized application (dApp) requests permission to withdraw tokens and nonfungible tokens (NFTs).
Also, the company has added more levels of permission control that let users revoke dApp connections directly from the app. This reduces “exposure to possible vulnerabilities.”
The crypto exchange joins a long list of other crypto wallets providers, such as Solana-based Phantom, Web3 wallet provider Ember, and Bitski, that have either released similar features or announced plans to do so in order to stop crypto fraud and phishing attacks.
Phantom reminded users on Jan. 27 that its wallets are protected by a number of security features, including transaction previews, an open source blocklist, NFT spam reporting, and burning—just two days after Moonbirds creator Kevin Rose admitted to losing $1.1 million in NFTs via a targeted phishing attack.
“When you do something in Phantom, like mint an NFT, we look at your transaction and find anything that looks suspicious,” the company said. Is the website suspicious? You have been issued a warning. attempting to disguise code? Warning. Interacting with shady tokens? Warning.”
The “community-maintained list of dangerous sites” on the open-source blocklist keeps Phantom users from accidentally connecting to them.
Ember is a Web3 wallet service. On the same day as Phantom, it sent out a tweet about its own security measures.
Translation previews, token and NFT locking to prevent assets from being drained as part of fraudulent transactions, and approval revocation are all on the list.
Bitski also said on January 24 that it was working on similar integrations for its 2.0 wallet. Product designer Jasmine Xu said that this would include “self-custody, a Dapp browser, transaction simulation previews, notifications about account activity, an in-app burner vault, and a lot more in a few weeks.”
In a recent blog post, Coinbase said that in the next few weeks, it will offer a service that lets customers “see and cancel existing token balances.”
These features are critical for crypto and NFT users since scammers and hackers utilize a variety of techniques to hijack transactions and have funds routed to them instead of the intended recipient.
Phishing attempts, scam airdrops that encourage people to click on harmful links, and malware are all popular methods for fooling even seasoned users.
