OpenSea announces new anti-scam features to protect users

On Tuesday, the popular NFT marketplace announced a new security feature that automatically hides suspicious NFT transfers from users’ view. This is in line with OpenSea’s attempt to address trust and safety issues by reducing the risks of NFT theft and scams on its platform.

Recently, the NFT marketplace has gotten infamous in the NFT sector for its vulnerability to hacks and scams, which is why the platform is concerned with improving users’ safety. 

OpenSea also plans to focus on key security aspects including theft prevention, IP infringement, scaling review and moderation, and reducing critical response times in high-touch settings, according to a recent announcement from OpenSea CEO, Devin Finzer.

Finzer said one of the common ways scammers defraud users is via unexpected NFT transfers. These transfers often contain links to malicious third-party sites. When an unsuspecting user visits those sites, phishing occurs, and some of their NFTs get stolen in the process.

OpenSea’s new updates will help to tackle these fraudulent NFT transfers. Now, rather than receiving these transfers, they would be automatically redirected to a user’s ‘Hidden’ folder, similar to how email spams are diverted to the spam folder.

As part of the update, the user would be notified whenever these malicious transfers are hidden. Users would also be able to hide suspicious transfers by themselves, and the Hidden folder would have new filter options 'Hidden by you' and ‘Auto-hidden.’

OpenSea admitted that these updates are not perfect and there would be occasions where it would mistakenly hide legitimate NFT transfers. However, it promised that the process would be improved over time.

OpenSea has witnessed reduced NFT trading volumes due to hacks, scams and thefts that have been rife on the platform. The recent arrest of Nathaniel Chastain, a former product manager at the company for wire fraud and money-laundering offences by US authorities also affected its credibility. These are reasons why the platform has decided to focus on improving trust and safety on its marketplace.

Photo: OpenSea