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Ilia Zavialov: digital security consultant on crypto, scams and protection
English version for the United States.
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.
The first hours after an incident
What to do when access or money is already gone: stop the ongoing loss, preserve evidence, report, and only then pursue recovery.
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.
Crypto arbitrage courses: training or money mule recruiting
Paid arbitrage courses, closed chats and ready-made bundles sold for prepayment, the point where a lesson turns into moving strangers' money, why banks close accounts, and how to check a course before paying.
Crypto inheritance: heir access without exposing the seed phrase
How to leave crypto to heirs without handing over the seed phrase, what an heir does first, probate and tax basics, and why paid recovery of a dead relative's wallet is usually a second loss.
Crypto loans: three offers compared line by line
A loan against crypto from an open protocol, from a centralised platform and from a bait site, checked against the same questions, with the collateral and liquidation price worked out.
Crypto holder physical safety after data leaks
Leaked exchange customer records, doxxing, home and family at risk, wrench attacks, fake exchange security calls, keeping holdings quiet, multisig and withdrawal delays, and what to do under threat.
A face from one photograph
How a single public photograph becomes the face of a fraudulent advert, and what remains checkable once it does.
How exchange scams are built
The anatomy of a fraudulent crypto exchange, from launch to shutdown, and what courts can do afterwards.
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.
Signing in without a password
What a passkey actually is, why phishing stops working against it, and how far the switch has gone by 2026.
Reviews and what to check instead
Why reviews of financial companies are bought on both sides and which public registers answer the question that reviews cannot.
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.
Staking and liquidity pools: a calculator for promised yields
Every promise of a staking pool or liquidity mining app turned into arithmetic: where the yield could come from, what it adds up to in a year, and what would have to be true for the number to work.
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.
Telegram gifts and usernames: fake escrow and deal checks
Collectible gifts, NFT gifts and collectible usernames in Telegram: fake escrow agents, cloned marketplace pages, the send-it-for-verification trick, login phishing and inflated rarity, plus how to check a seller.
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 organizations. 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.
03Blog of Ilia Zavialov
Subjects are taken apart one at a time: how a mechanism works, where the loss happens, and which measures hold.
- Ilia Zavialov: crypto loans against collateral, three offers side by side and the liquidation math October 30, 2026, 14 min read
- Ilia Zavialov scam checks: staking and liquidity pools with guaranteed yield, the math behind the promise October 29, 2026, 15 min read
- Ilia Zavialov: crypto inheritance, heir access without the seed phrase and US tax rules October 27, 2026, 12 min read
04Ilia Zavialov published elsewhere
Material signed Ilia Zavialov or Ilia Nikolaevich Zavialov, available in full at the original sources.
- One hour of counterparty due diligence: public records that settle it medium.com
- Blog archive of published material livejournal.com
- Publication on financial security smart-lab.ru
- On protecting bank cards: what actually has to be guarded spark.ru
- On account takeover: what is actually stolen is the trust of contacts pikabu.ru