This security tool can detect honeypots and other Web3 scams

cointelegraph.com:

As the Web3 world evolves, so too do scam techniques. As crypto literacy continues to grow among all demographics, scammers are developing new approaches and refining old tricks to bilk victims out of their assets.

One of the newer schemes is referred to as the honeypot scam. This tactic may have a soft name, but can create severe losses.

The term “honeypot” is commonly used in cybersecurity to describe a deceptive setup designed to attract individuals.

Honeypot scams include several fraudulent schemes. One of them involves smart contracts that feign a design flaw that allows any user to extract Ether (ETH) — Ethereum’s native currency — from the contract by sending a certain amount of Ether in advance. However, when a user attempts to exploit this apparent vulnerability, a hidden trapdoor, unbeknownst to the user, thwarts the attempted Ether siphoning. The primary goal is to focus the user’s attention solely on the visible vulnerability while hiding any evidence of a secondary vulnerability within the contract.

The scam operates by luring victims using an apparently easy-to-access wallet. For example, the wallet’s recovery phrase may have been “leaked.” Victims try to access it, thinking they can transfer funds from this wallet. To make the transaction to their own wallet, victims must often deposit a native network token to cover the transaction fees. However, a script or “sweeper bot” swiftly redirects these tokens elsewhere before the victim can act.

To identify such scams, crypto holders should look for unsolicited seed phrase shares, immediate wallet transfers upon deposit, or unfamiliar direct messages on social platforms.

Honeypot schemes can be easily detected by Web3 Antivirus (W3A), a browser extension that can