PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT BEWARE OF SCAMMERS AND HACKERS

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BE AWARE OF SCAMMERS AND HACKERS!

Hello to all you fluffy bunnies of great big Iwaku!

It has come to our attention as of recently that there may be scammers among our ranks and folks accounts being hacked!! But, don't fret my friends, being diligent and aware of the risks may just save you.

Remember to never EVER click on a link from an unknown individual! Ignore them and warn others as a safety precaution.

If you ever receive a strange message, either through Discord or through Iwaku's PM system, ignore it and report it immediately and seek out a staff member ASAP! We will make sure we take a look at this and take the proper measures.
An example of a scammy message may include/look like:
Hey we don't know each other but I need you to hear me out. I had my friend report your account for _OFFENSE HERE_ and I'm afraid your account will be banned. I'm really sorry. Can you talk to this _DISCORD OR IWAKU_ moderator to let them know it was a mistake?
At this point the scammer will have you do your security things and give have you give them access to your profile.

In addition to this, to prevent a hacker gaining access to your account: setup 2 step authentications, create strong passwords, and/or use a secure device!
For more information feel free to check out How to Protect Yourself Against Hackers.

Staying diligent and on top of these sorts of things will save you the headache of actually being hacked.

And remember, my friends, never share your personal information and passwords!
 
Additionally, I recommend either writing your passwords down on a piece of secure physical media (not completely advisable I know, but unless you can remember each one or are terrible when it comes to keeping track of your things, you should be fine keeping them in an unsuspecting looking notebook - maybe one filled with pages of actual math homework or something as a cover), or putting them on a thumb drive and simply inserting that whenever you want to login, or using a password manager like Bitwarden. It isn't 100% foolproof as they have servers that could be compromised just like any other similar service, but it's better than nothing to have your passwords stored and hashed so an attacker can't just take a peek at them. Unless they happen to get their hands on the database and use a rainbow table attack to retrieve the plaintext passwords, but that's just a risk you take with storing credentials and sensitive info in general on anyone else's machine.

Furthermore, I also recommend using randomly generated passwords that are 45 or more characters in length and generating new ones every time you change your account's passwords in order to minimize the risk of someone just guessing or using a brute force attack (basically more guessing, but with password spam as well until the password is guessed correctly). Do this for every single account you make if you can. A good tool for this also happens to come from Bitwarden, and is one I happen to use myself, although there's many others on the web as well: Bitwarden Password Generator. As for the why behind the length, it basically makes brute force attacks harder to do. As the longer the password the more time has to be spent calculating every possible combination of symbol, number, and character potentially used. Completely blind at that if it's random and changed regularly, and is also a mix of various symbols, numbers, characters and the like. Though there is still a major debate versus password complexity as you can see. Even so a mixed approach that incorporates both, as random password generation does, is still best practice currently.

If you believe your account has been compromised, sign out of all accounts if possible and change your passwords immediately. The less time they can spend fiddling with various settings to keep you out or request more personal info or see connected accounts/services (as is the case if someone gains access to your Google account and starts snooping for any third-party programs you have connected), the better. Also yes, do turn on 2FA. Multiple forms ideally, albeit ones that don't rely too heavily on SMS messages and the like since SIM swap attacks happen to be a thing. Authy is one I happen to use. Consider securing these 2FA applications with either a password, PIN, biometrics, or some combination of the three as well. Same with your phone itself, etc.

Finally, clear your browser cookies. This will log you out if you're still logged in, but better a minor inconvenience every time you accidentally close your browser (if you've set history and browsing data to clear on exit) than someone potentially hijacking them and getting your info, or even access to your current session. And remember not to download and/or run random shit from the internet that you can't verify the credibility and security of. Especially if it's some form of executable. Oh, and yeah, don't give your info away.
 
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I recommend giving me all of your passwords. I will look after everyone's passwords. I will definitely not sell everyone's passwords for fun and profit. I am absolutely trustworthy in these matters.

but ye password managers are good and helpful
 
You're saying that if I click all the links, I'll develop immunity? (Joking.)

Your advice isn't listed because you're mistaking phishing for hacking. They aren't the same. One is social engineering, where the user willingly provides their information that is logged, and the site owner then uses the information you gave them to access your account. A common example of this is steam phishing on Discord. Check the URL if its asking for information. (That is how easy it is to stop phishing.)

Now, everything provided on the link is fine and 101 security. There are other easy method like using cmd prompt for the "ping www.iwakuroleplay.com" and typing or copying and pasting that IP on www.whatismyapaddress.com to see information on the domain. If it isn't wix, weebly, WordPress, cloudflare (like iwaku) etc, be cautious. As self-hosted websites are where 99.9998887% of bad websites reside. Mainly due to Wix and these billion-dollar companies having a vested interest. Side note: did you know WIX owns Deviantart and Discord uses their services for their website?

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You can click to see if the website has any known history or issues. One of many free tools you can do to defend yourself, Takes 30 seconds. Knowledge is power.
 
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I am currently studying IT and I run my own website on the side. While this advice is sound on paper. It's actually really pretty bad advise. I shared Iwaku's link to people on discord and got banned for sending "suspicious links." I also get banned and excommunicated out of groups because my website's name isn't a name they know. People will think that a website they have used before is safe because it didn't do anything immediately bad to them. Meanwhile that site is a breeding ground of viruses and malware.

If anything this advice will spark witch hunts which doesn't benefit anyone. It's best practice to teach people the tool and skills they need to find out if a website is malicious.

Here is how I check if an unfamiliar site is safe. I own a website called "suspiciouswebsite.fun" let's use that for an example.

Easiest method:
Go to whois.com. This website logs who owns what domains on the internet. This is all public information.
In the search bar, throw in the website's url.

1713671207964.png

-> Whois suspiciouswebsite.fun (if you wanna see for yourself)
The Registrar is the company who registered the domain name. Tucows.com is a subsidiary of wix.com

Named Servers this tells you the name of the server. wixdns.net is lets you know that this website is hosted on a wix server.

So Who is wix.com? Let's google that!
It's a web hosting company that takes security extremely seriously. Therefore it is in their best interest to make sure that all websites that are hosted under their name are safe and secure.

Therefore the website called "suspiciouswebsite.fun" is 100% safe.
 
I am currently studying IT and I run my own website on the side. While this advice is sound on paper. It's actually really pretty bad advise. I shared Iwaku's link to people on discord and got banned for sending "suspicious links." I also get banned and excommunicated out of groups because my website's name isn't a name they know. People will think that a website they have used before is safe because it didn't do anything immediately bad to them. Meanwhile that site is a breeding ground of viruses and malware.

If anything this advice will spark witch hunts which doesn't benefit anyone. It's best practice to teach people the tool and skills they need to find out if a website is malicious.

Here is how I check if an unfamiliar site is safe. I own a website called "suspiciouswebsite.fun" let's use that for an example.

Easiest method:
Go to whois.com. This website logs who owns what domains on the internet. This is all public information.
In the search bar, throw in the website's url.

-> Whois suspiciouswebsite.fun
The Registrar is the company who registered the domain name. Tucows.com is a subsidiary of wix.com

Named Servers this tells you the name of the server. wixdns.net is lets you know that this website is hosted on a wix server.

So Who is wix.com? Let's google that!
It's a web hosting company that takes security extremely seriously. Therefore it is in their best interest to make sure that all websites that are hosted under their name are safe and secure.

Therefore the website called "suspiciouswebsite.fun" is 100% safe.
Easier method.