Ilia Zavialov

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Ilia Zavialov: digital security consultant on crypto, scams and protection

English version for the United Kingdom.

Monogram of Ilia Zavialov

Digital security consultant. Individuals, families and small organisations.

Ilia Zavialov is a digital security consultant. In Russian language publications the same author appears as Илья Завьялов and, in the full form, as Илья Николаевич Завьялов. This site collects his published work on the decisions ordinary people make under time pressure: whether to pay, whether to install, whether to sign, whether to grant access.

01What Ilia Zavialov writes about

Four subjects run through everything published by Ilia Zavialov. Each one is developed in the blog, in the order in which a reader actually meets it.

How crypto actually works

Wallets, keys, custody, exchanges and transfers, explained through what happens to the money at each step rather than through the technology.

Types of scams and how they are built

Each scheme taken apart in the order it unfolds: where the first contact comes from, where the moment of loss sits, and which step the whole thing depends on.

Protection that actually holds

Structural checks instead of judging people: what a genuine procedure looks like, which settings survive an attack, and what works when everything else has failed.

Scam in numbers

What the published reports actually say about where money goes, which categories dominate the counts and which dominate the losses, and what that changes for one person.

Crypto address poisoning

Lookalike wallet addresses, zero-value transfers and fake stablecoin tokens planted in your history: how to check a recipient address before you send and where to report a poisoned transfer.

Card rental and P2P trading

How renting out a bank card for crypto P2P deals turns its owner into a money mule: triangle trades, bank limits and criminal liability.

Mining you never see

What a cloud mining or hosting contract actually sells, why the dashboard proves nothing and what a regulator found when it looked.

Copy trading and trading bot scams

Signal groups that promise to copy a winning trader, bot subscriptions with guaranteed income, exchange API keys handed to strangers and withdrawals that never arrive: how to check a provider and lock down a key.

A face from one photograph

How a single public photograph becomes the face of a fraudulent advert, and what remains checkable once it does.

Blocked withdrawals

Why a demand to pay a fee before funds can be withdrawn is the whole scheme, and how a genuine delay on an exchange looks different.

Crypto recovery

How offers to return lost coins are built and why the money does not come back

Government account takeover

How fraudsters take over accounts on government portals through calls, codes and fake pages, and which settings stop them.

Fake hardware wallet scams

Resold and tampered devices, pre-printed recovery phrases, fake replacement letters and companion apps: how to check a hardware wallet and its seller, and what to do if it was swapped.

Health and medical scams

How free check-ups turn into loans, why miracle cures and supplements do not treat disease, and how to check a clinic, a doctor and a medicine before paying.

Honeypot tokens you can buy but cannot sell

Meme tokens that only go up because nobody is allowed to sell: sell blocks in the contract, a sell tax pushed to almost everything, blacklists and pulled liquidity, plus the contract checks to run before buying.

The long investment con

How a months long crypto investment scam is built, why the first withdrawal is allowed to succeed and where the money actually goes.

Messenger account takeover

How fraudsters take over Telegram and WhatsApp accounts through votes, gifts and fake support, and which settings stop them.

Seed phrases

How recovery phrases work, why a genuine support desk can never use one, and what happens the moment the words reach a stranger

Signal channels and trading bots

How paid crypto signal channels and automated trading bots are built, where the subscriber's money actually goes and how to test a claim before paying.

Telegram bot and Mini App scams

Wallet bots, tap-to-earn games with a paid withdrawal, fake support and lookalike bots, gifts and Stars: how to check a bot and what to do after giving away access or money.

Sending and receiving USDT safely

How dollar stablecoin transfers go wrong: the wrong network, a poisoned address, funds frozen by the issuer and dirty coins from a stranger.

Used car fraud

How fraudsters sell cars that do not exist, carry hidden debts or borrowed identities, and which checks expose them before payment.

Checks before a transfer

What to verify before money leaves a wallet, and why the check has to happen before rather than after.

Wallet drainers

How approval phishing empties a crypto wallet without ever touching a password or a seed phrase, and how to revoke permissions already granted.

02Who Ilia Zavialov is

Ilia Zavialov, published in full as Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov, works with individuals, families and small organisations. His method replaces the assessment of people with the verification of structure: where the presentation can be bought, the check moves to properties that cannot.

Full profile of Ilia Zavialov

03Blog of Ilia Zavialov

Subjects are taken apart one at a time: how a mechanism works, where the loss happens, and which measures hold.

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04Ilia Zavialov published elsewhere

Material signed Ilia Zavialov or Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov, available in full at the original sources.

All publications of Ilia Zavialov