@crypto-zard : a dedicated Splinterlands player 👾

I'm sure many of you know Crypto-Zard, but if not let me tell you about him. He's a Crypto Gaming Streamer on Twitch who is also now making Splinterlands and other Play2earn Gaming videos on Youtube. I'd certainly say Splinterlands is the main game he plays and he has spent a lot of his hard earned cash buying into Hive's biggest TCG. As a regular Streamer and Youtuber he does a lot to spread Splinterlands around the world, even though the crypto market has been going through a down trend for more than 2 years. I know that he dreams of one day being a full time content creator / streamer, earning a living from play2earn gaming with his girlfriend @beccss (they are a stream-team)!

The Hack - how they got his Runi 😢

Last week there was someone hanging around in the THGaming Discord offering potential jobs for 'Moderators and Testers' of a new game. I felt uneasy about this individual but didn't want to simply block them in case I was ruining an opportunitiy for the Gamers in our Discord, however I should have trusted my gut in this case. After looking into the Scammer I did block the offender and deleted all of their messages, but not before Crypto-Zard had made contact with the disgusting individual in question; who went by the name 'Overlord'.

From what Crypto-Zard has told me, he was offered to Beta Test out a new game which he would have to download. Once he downloaded this fake game, malware was installed onto his computer which gave the Scammer instant access to his Metamask wallet. Within a few hours they had listed and sold his Splinterlands Runi and there was nothing he could do to stop it!

How you can help Crypto-Zard 👼

While I understand that lots of people get hacked / scammed every day in crypto, we have the opportunity on the Hivechain to actually help one of our fallen brethren. Below I will list 5 ways you can help Crypto-Zard and show him that the #Splinterlands and #Hive communities support each other.

1. Upvote this post and ReBlog if you can. ALL rewards on this post will go to Crypto-Zard's account as he has been set as 100% Beneficiary on all post earnings.

2. If you have some crypto to spare you can Tip HBD or HIVE on this post, or send it directly to @crypto-zard. All Tips received will be forwarded on to his account.

3. Follow / Subscribe to him on Youtube and Twitch and Twitter. As a Content creator, Subs are gold to him and as a Splinterlands Streamer & Blog Poster we should be supporting him anyway as he helps to spread the word about one of crypto's most successful play2earn games!

4. Join his Discord Server and drop him a kind word. He regularly streams so you can also catch his Streaming announcements there, and believe me @crypto-zard and @beccss do tons of giveaways when streaming so supporting them also means you can win epic Splinterlands prizes.

5. Follow Crypto-Zard on PeakD and help to build up his reputation on Hive-Engine.

Help Crypto-Zard and win 🏆

Good deeds deserve great rewards, so...

• 5 random people who ReBlog this post will win 2000 $THGAMING Tokens.
• 5 random people who upvote this post 100% will also win 2000 $THGAMING Tokens.

In total I'll be giving away 20 000 $THGAMING Tokens. Prize draw ends on Post Payout in 7 days time. The draw will be done randomly using a Random Number Generator. All prizes will be handed over within 48 hours of Post Payout (7 days time).

How to keep yourself safe from Hacks

I feel that I should have acted quicker in banning this hacker, and myself and the THGaming Moderation team on Discord are upping our security even more and will continue to monitor new members closely. This is the first incident on our Discord (that we know about) although we've had many of our Discord members compromised before, from other Discord Servers. More often than not these Hacks rely on people being manipulated and asked to download something, they prey on our trust and there is a special place in hell for people who do this! Here are a few tips I recommend for keeping yourself a bit safer:

1. Trust almost nobody, as even your own friend's account can be compromised! I've received MANY direct messages from people I know who were themselves hacked and had their Discord taken over by a scammer, who then started sending out 'Download links' to the hacked person's Friends on Discord. These messages usually ask you to join a Discord / Telegram account or Download a File.

2. Install a decent Anti-Virus, preferably 1 with a firewall, maleware and adware protection. Regularly Scan your computer for Viruses. I recommend ESET SECURITY or a similar antivirus. ESET has a 30 day free trial, so you can use it for 30 days and 'clean sweep' your computer at the same time, which at least gives you a fresh start and cleans your computer for the time being.

3. Don't keep your Crypto Wallet Keys on your computer! This however doesn't always work as some Hacks can access your Wallets without having your keys.

4. Trust your instincts. If an offer feels 'too good to be true' it probably is. Most hack attempts will come from large Discords where scammers will randomly send out messages to users informing them that they've "won a prize" or "been selected to test out a unique feature in the game".

5. Research the individual messaging you. When did they join Discord? How can they prove they are legitimate? Real people don't have a problem proving who they are or instantly ask you to Download a File!

6. If anyone else has any tips for keeping your computer safe, please write them in the comments of this post and help to educate more people on the Hivechain.

The Good News 🚀

The good news is that the Splinterlands Community was able to track down the person who bought @crypo-zard's Runi and this person has agreed to sell it back to him. Obviously the person who bought it on OpenSea had no idea it was stolen goods. Hopefully we can raise a bit of money with this post so that buying back his own Runi doesn't hurt quite as much.

Thanks for taking the time to read to the end. I have never posted any 'charity style' Blogs before on Hive-Engine so have no idea how much this will help Mr Zard, but whatever people can spare will be appreciated by him, I'm sure. I also wanted to educate people about how many Scammers / Hackers are out there; we regularly Ban people from the THGaming Discord and we are not a huge community, so imagine just how many scammers are out there hunting for victims on the biggest Discord Servers.

With all that being said, as always...

Trade safely, Game hard.

THE END