Many New Users Are Falling Into A Trap
Here is the mistake:
When users want to send funds from bittrex to their steemit account, they are met with this window:
Unknowingly, people will read this, and in the field that says "MEMO", they are entering their steemit account passwords or keys.
NEVER share your passwords or keys with ANYONE.
NEVER send your passwords or keys to ANY SITE.
DO NOT TRUST ANY WEBSITES OR PEOPLE WHO ARE ASKING FOR THESE THINGS.
Anything in the permissions and password tabs of your wallet should be kept PRIVATE.
So how would you fill out the bittrex window?
Here's How:
If you post your keys or password into that memo field, it is open and visible for ANYONE to see. Once it is on the blockchain, it cannot be hidden or removed.
Should you accidentally post your keys or password anywhere, you should IMMEDIATELY change your password.
This is what it would look like:
By having access to your keys and or password, your account is susceptible to theft.
Unfortunately, a friend of ours by the name of @fredrikaa was not aware of this and has gotten his account and funds stolen.
He sent funds from bittrex to steemit, and inserted the wrong thing into the memo.... within MINUTES someone had taken complete control of his account, stole his liquid steem (worth about $1000) and has proceeded to power down the remaining steempower he has (worth about $2000).
Just look at how quickly things can go south...
This is truly a tragic misfortune, I would be furious should this have happened to me.
For this reason, we as a community are OBLIGATED to spread awareness and prioritize security, otherwise we are no better than the scammers we allow to ROB OUR FRIENDS.
Any and all proceeds gained from this post will be sent to @fredrikaa once he is re-acclimated.
@Fredrikaa has regained control of his account, but the steem that was stolen is gone for good.
Please, Please, Please be aware of what you are doing, and what you are posting.
DO NOT SHARE YOUR PRIVATE INFORMATION WITH ANYONE OR ANYTHING.
IF A WEBSITE IS ASKING FOR PRIVATE INFORMATION, DOUBLE CHECK WITH SOMEONE ELSE, AND IF YOU ARE SKEPTICAL, DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM.
Be sure to read this article pertaining to security with your account:
https://steemit.com/security/@noisy/public-and-private-keys-how-to-generate-all-steem-user-s-keys-from-master-password-without-a-steemit-website-being-offline
Stay Awesome
-Zey
This is 100% upvote material. I haven't read anything this important here before. When you send from Poloniex for instance, it says put memo here. I did that. Hell, I think I even wrote a blog post about how you should do that. Gotta find it and try to write a warning or something, if I cant edit it.
What exactly should you put in the memo-field when you transfer steem from poloniex??
Just had to change my password myself. Can't believe I let my account be exposed like that.
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No, you don't need to fill out the memo for poloniex either.
Both bittrex and poloniex have optional memo fields, so as long as you put the right account in, you will get your money. No memo needed.
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Thanks. This is gold :)
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Wtf!? @fredrikaa @illestbambi did I just fucked up? I just sent some Steem from bittrex myself before doing so I watched videos for two days and every fkn video I watched said to use your memo key ! So that’s what I used ! Even videos that were ppl who were fairly big on Steem and YouTube BUT when I go to my wallet all it shows is the name bittrex it doesn’t show my key like the picture above! Help lol am I good? Or do I need to change my password !? Geez WTF do they even have this memo box if it’s not needed
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No worries if you posted your memo key. Make sure you never post your owners key or master password. I would however change my master password. Never enter any keys on the blockchain.
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But it seems now maybe they changed the code? Bc you can’t go to the bittrex Steem account to their wallet and see the keys any more like In the picture above
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Dear all,
I just got my Account Recovery successfully finished. Needless to say, I am very grateful for that and happy that nothing got Powered Down. Losing ~500 STEEM right out the window to a thief, although thanks to my own mistake, was of course gut-wrenching. The last ~12 hours has also been really awful riddled with fear of how bad it could end if the recovery was not successful quickly enough.
I would like to thank all of you who already upvoted the post and are showing your support here and on Discord. Also, huge thanks to you @illestbambi for the kindness of making this post. It is people like you who are making this platform and community so unique. Hopefully, we can all contribute to reduce the amount of new users who need to experience this unecessary loss and discomfort.
Anyways, again thank you all for being awesome.
It's good to be back.
Fredrik / @Fredrikaa
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@Fredrikaa Will send you a little bit of SBD. If everyone else can agree to do so, we can collectively get you back on track.
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That is very kind of you @overkillcoin and very much appreciated. It's the steem community that makes it such an amazing project. And you're definitely part of that!
Would be amazing if that would happen, but would take around 349 more people I guess. At least people are showing kindness and compassion in upvoting.
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Thank you for the kind words, that really means a lot.
You will pick back up in no time!
Good to have you back man.
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Hi @Fredrikaa,
I hope this doesn't make you stop posting, it is quite a shocking situation but we love your posts! You have all our support!
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I up voted you to help you recover a very small amount. See I am new here, and just do not have much steem power, if that is the right term. All I know is if I upvote the first 10 upvotes get some crypto or something.
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Thanks so much for posting about this and explaining the process of what not to do! I can't believe this happened :(
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I truly appreciate this post. People like myself can be confused with all the keys, memo's, websites and extra passwords, when first entering this new world of cryptocurrency.
I think a detailed explanation of every aspect of the wallet, in full sentences leaving out all acronyms would be a great help.
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Absolutely, it is a lot to wrap your head around when you are new, especially since there could be a lot of money involved.
There are many posts that go into detail about such things, a guy named @noisy has done a great service for us all and has gone in great depth in many of his posts to help explain such things.
Check out a few of his posts:
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Thank you for that, I will read and keep these.
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Yep got to stay secure!!!!
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It's the top priority!
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Can you also detail the "permissions?"
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If you go to the @bittrex or @poloniex Steemit account, check their wallet transaction history, you will see many many many people posting private memo keys directly on the blockchain, it is a very good thing that you have posted this here. It's a very good warning.
I truly hope people will read this, before they mess up...
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exactly why this post is important!
This is a very easy mistake to make.... but a very expensive mistake.
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They must have updated the code or something bc it doesn’t show it any more
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Upvoted and resteemed! I'm so sorry for my friend!
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My question is, can't we see where the money is being cashed? I understand getting the money back will be a hassle but the account where the stolen steem money is going to will reveal the thief's account and likely, his/her identity.
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No, the thief sent the money to blocktrades, and it is extremely hard to track the funds to a final location unless the thief was dumb enough to send it straight to his own account.
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If he didn't send it straight to his account, then he sent it to a friend's and he hopes his friend will give him the money later? Who ever receives the money, even if they never stole the money, should return it.
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they can just send it to an exchange where it is basically impossible to track
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Great information here. It's easy to make a mistake. Make sure you always double check stuff people!
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Thank you, indeed, always double/triple check!
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Yes yes, doing good.
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This post received my first "vote up" as a new Steemonian today,
Thanks for the heads up to this!
Looking forward how, together, we will all make this platform amazing!!!
I appreciate all of you that have pioneered it to the stage of development where it is at today.
Press On, I Support You!
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Looks interesting
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Don't mind this useless comment.
My son was just testing his bot that he's making.
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I'm new to Steemit and to cryptocurrencies and I could easily have made that same mistake. Thank you so much for jumping right on it and making this post. I've bookmarked it in my browser.
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Not a problem, I'm glad you found this helpful, and even more happy that I could help you prevent making this kind of mistake :)
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Thank you for shearing this post
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Holy friken chit! @illestbambi
Thanks for this post.
Can you PLEASE HELP ME!?
take a look in my Wallet History: I used one of my public keys in MEMO with Bittrex recently?
God, Please tell me I am not screwed?
Please tell me public key is ok to display?????
After reading your AWSOME POST! I will never put chit into MEMO.
I am going to be sweating my balls off waiting for your reply?
May this cry for help find you in good health.
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This is amazing! Im actually saving this so can go back and double check. Im very new to all cryptocurrency and trying to learn as I go and posts like this are extremely valuable and important! Thanks for taking time and putting all together
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No problem!
Glad I could help.
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Thank you. I honestly do not know anything about crypto currencies, I joined steemit to learn and share general knowledge, but it seems I will need to learn about crypto's at some point, (for some reason I keep getting rewards in my wallet). I resteemed the post so that in the future I will have this post to look back on when it comes time to do something with that wallet, and any useful information is only useful if you can find it. It takes forever to scroll backward a year through any of the hashtag's, even the least used hashtag. Can't imagine in two years how long it will take to scroll back, so thank you very much for this post and the links it contains.
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Glad to help!
It is worth the time to learn about crypto, it is really interesting stuff.
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Sharing and upvoting! NEW USERS NEED TO READ THIS!
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Thank you, spread awareness!
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@fredrikaa go get him, contact blocktrades and try to find out who that guy was!
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This could more easily be avoided if the programmers of Steem.it would use a separate window for the private key . . . And maybe a great big warning on the page.
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Thank you for this information; Resteemed!
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No problem!
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Thank you, There is a lot of advice here for very new steemians, but not enough for "growing minnows" . What is more, much is out of date, and its hard to know that if there is no more recent post advising of the change.
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No problem.
I'm just bringing this issue back up because I find that people are still running into it.
There are many posts out here that you should 100% read in order to be as secure as possible.
Check out @noisy, he consistently gives really good information about securing your account.
This may also be of good use to you:
https://steemit.com/steemit-guides/@jerrybanfield/the-steemit-account-security-tutorial-june-2017
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Thanks very much, I'll do that.
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This happened to me and I had to change all keys.
What I really appreciate about this post is that it offers step by step instructions how to properly send Steem into our account from Bittrex. I didn't know I could leave the memo field blank.
Resteemed!
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You say you should keep your Active, Posting, Memo etc codes safe but aren't they visible on https://steemd.com/@illestbambi/ ? I'm not sure as I only join this site last night and i'm still learning the ropes
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your private ones are the ones that need to be kept safe
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So what are the ones on that site?
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public keys
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There's so much to learn!!
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This may be a noob question. But would it be possible to see if the account at blocktrades forwards any steem to an account on steemit? Thus linking the accounts and putting an account to the hacker?
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That's terrible. I really hope this will at least help others keep their accounts safe.
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An important warning and cautionary tale... this should really be "required reading" on a regular basis.
The (sad, but true) lesson here is that there are people out there just WAITING to pounce on even the slightest opening we offer.
I'm glad the "hole" in @fredrikaa's account was plugged quickly... but still a costly experience.
A big thumbs up to everyone who helps through being vigilant and helping those who do fall into traps. This is what COMMUNITY is all about!
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I agree, the steemit community has a lot of potential, but we still need to be wary of the few who are here to disrupt. For this reason, it is important to know how to keep yourself and your account secure, while also helping out others.
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