By George Ward
In the quest to search for protocols and platforms that would distribute tokens to a particular community, administrators run the risk of interacting with scammers or malicious entities. As a result, it is essential to consider the security of your community when on airdrop hunts and protect your platform’s integrity.
Crypto Airdrops And High Insecurity
Utilizing crypto airdrops presents an excellent opportunity for community administrators to bolster investment liquidity. Yet, it harbors a high cyber security threat that requires utmost vigilance.
Hence, crypto community administrators must engage those who have achieved notable success and have enough experience. These experienced professionals will actively analyze several on-chain transactions and various smart contracts.
However, the risk here is that such mass participation in activities may expose members to losing all or most of their crypto wallet funds, especially when there is a lack of fundamental cybersecurity expertise. Even when an admin has taken all necessary precautions to ensure their community’s safety during airdrop hunting, hackers can still target the software that the community uses.
As a result, hacking or exploits represents the most significant security risks to crypto communities during airdrops, especially when data shows up to 30 transactions daily.
How To Enhance Security During Crypto Airdrop
Meanwhile, there are several measures crypto community admins can take to ensure the security of their community when airdrop hunting. Below are some of the most basic ones to consider.
Open a Special Wallet: One of the first things to consider is to create a particular crypto wallet that can be utilized for airdrop hunting only. It is a highly ill-advised move to handle personal crypto holdings using funds designated for daily interactions with Web3 protocols.
An admin’s core holdings should be securely stored in a hardware wallet, minimizing usage exclusively for significant transactions, like asset reallocation or withdrawing funds.
Use Hardware Wallet
Also, it is best to use a hardware wallet instead of a software wallet as it offers better security, according to research and the opinions of Web3 experts. Ledger, Jade, Trezor, Coldcard, and Bitbox are highly recommended hardware wallets compared to their software alternatives, such as Trust Wallet and MetaMask.
Website Source Check
Another thing worth considering is checking the source of the website you are visiting to hunt for airdrops. No matter your experience and familiarity with decentralized platforms, you should refrain from directly searching for the dApp’s name on search engines.
Instead, rely on reputable sources like the official Twitter pages of “CoinMarketCap,” “DappRadar,” “DefilLama,” and other trusted platforms.
Essential Tools For Improved Safety When Airdrop Hunting
There are two trusted and reliable tools that you can use to mitigate security risks when on the search for airdrops to boost your platform’s liquidity. The tools are Wallet Guard and Revoke Cash.
Wallet Guard
This free extension scrutinizes transaction details when interacting with a smart contract. Without this invaluable tool, understanding the terms and conditions imposed by different contracts before signing them would necessitate delving into the source code.
The assumption is that the admin or co-admins possess the expertise to identify genuine source codes from fraudulent ones. Wallet Guard significantly simplifies this security process by offering alerts on phishing sites, effectively highlighting potential risks one may encounter.
Revoke Cash
With Revoke Cash, admins can decline some authorization previously granted to decentralized entities in the quest for airdrops. Also, they can approve or disapprove requests since it is an available option before executing a smart contract transaction.
While this step is mandatory and may not initially appear malicious, the platform the community uses and the smart contract itself could be compromised, potentially leading to the vulnerability of the community’s crypto wallet and exposing members to risks.
While the risks might not be averted completely, crypto community platforms will become less vulnerable to malicious players when admins hunt for airdrops.