In the weeks since our launch, we are seeing an increasing number of sophisticated scammers trying to take advantage of our community. These scams range from emails to Twitter accounts to fake websites, and the most sophisticated of them are targeted phishing scams, using social engineering.

Please take measures to protect yourself from phishing and other online scams. Never click on a link in an email, even if it appears to be from a Hedera or Swirlds team member. Instead, open a new browser window and type the URL (hederahashgraph.com) directly into the address bar. Do that today, and then bookmark the address. We are seeing many websites that are copying our site exactly, so check the address bar, and make sure to type it in yourself (with no misspellings). We will provide broad, community-reaching updates through the website. In the coming weeks, we will also be moving this blog from Medium to our website, for consistency and security.

In addition, below are a few more general tips to protect yourself from phishing attacks:

· Never submit confidential information via forms embedded in or attached to email messages

· Be wary of emails asking for financial information

· Don’t fall for scare tactics. Phishers often try to pressure you into providing sensitive information by threatening a sense of urgency around the call to action. Many of these invitations will link to sites that will be taken down within 24–48 hours by the authorities, so sometimes waiting can save a lot of headache

· Be suspicious of social media invitations from people you don’t know. According to Kaspersky Lab research, over one in five phishing scams target Facebook

· Be aware of your publicly facing names, and emails that address you with those names. For example, if your name is Bob Smith, and your Twitter handle is @BobSmith, and you follow hashgraph on Twitter, this information is all publicly available. Any email to “Dear Bob Smith” should be regarded with caution

· Ignore emails with typos and misspellings

· Update and maintain your system’s anti-virus software to combat phishing

Hedera Hashgraph Team