Interview with Founder Alex Dulub

In December, the web3 neighborhood welcomed the appearance of Web3 Antivirus — an answer that goals to assist customers avoid phishing scams and harmful sensible contracts. We met with W3A founder Alex Dulub and requested him to share some particulars on this fascinating challenge.

Alex, may you introduce your self to our readers, please?

Hello, it’s very good to satisfy you. As you already talked about, my title is Alex, and I’m the founding father of Web3 Antivirus. I’ve all the time been fascinated by cutting-edge applied sciences corresponding to blockchain and AI, and, after all, I’m an enormous web3 fanatic.

This curiosity finally led me to ascertain my software program growth and consulting firm, PixelPlex. This yr we rejoice our fifteenth anniversary, and I feel the launch of Web3 Antivirus is a good way to commemorate this milestone.

How have you ever give you the thought of making Web3 Antivirus?

Properly, whereas engaged on auditing and constructing sensible contracts with my group, we noticed a large amount of fraud, resulting in detrimental outcomes. It’s horrible how tens of millions of {dollars} may be misplaced to scams in just some clicks.

Clearly, there was an pressing want for a safety resolution in a position to detect web3-specific threats corresponding to malicious sensible contracts, fraudulent transactions, and phishing. Additionally, it could’ve been nice to have a transparent understanding of what actual sensible contract you might be signing with out having to do complete analysis. So I believed, why not construct such a instrument myself?

The invaluable data of how totally different web3 scams work and the methods to detect them I gained over years of engaged on blockchain-based initiatives turned the muse of Web3 Antivirus.

How does W3A work?

W3A is a browser extension, one thing like a protecting layer between a person and risks they might encounter within the web3 area. The answer pauses a transaction, analyzes it, and presents the danger evaluation report in 2 seconds, specifying what can go fallacious if a person confirms the transaction.

What’s extra, W3A is able to name stack backtracing, which permits it to look at all sensible contracts linked to the transaction somewhat than checking solely the one you might be at present interacting with.

In consequence, customers get the transaction’s danger degree with the record of all risks noticed. With a full image of what awaits them forward, customers could make an knowledgeable determination about whether or not to approve the transaction or decline it.

Additionally, the answer checks domains in opposition to an intensive database utilizing AI similarity comparability and identifies suspicious URLs. If a person is heading to a phishing or untrustworthy web site, W3A instantly blocks them.

Importantly, the extension requires no organising and by no means asks for entry to wallets, property, or a seed phrase.

What are your future plans?

Now, we’re engaged on increasing the vary of supported wallets and blockchains, with BNB and Solana coming quickly. In addition to, the extension will quickly get a brand-new function, W3A Dashboard. Consider it as an account that logs the historical past of threats you’ve come throughout, together with an in depth record of transactions and delegated token rights.

And we by no means cease upgrading the auditing methodology. Quickly, along with the danger evaluation report, customers will have the ability to see all steps of transaction simulation and the risks related to every of them.

We’re additionally implementing superior NFT evaluation that covers historic knowledge and a machine learning-enriched layer in a position to detect monetary fraud, outline pockets danger scoring, IP infringements, honeypots, and so forth.

Who can profit from Web3 Antivirus?

It doesn’t matter what your objectives are in web3, be it making transactions or simply exploring web sites — W3A is for everybody embracing web3. Additionally, web3 initiatives, like non-fungible token (NFT) collections or DeFi protocols, can get validated by the answer. This can be a win-win situation for the reason that initiatives will get a “security label” whereas we are going to improve our knowledge layer.

We goal to grow to be a community-driven challenge with members in a position to contribute to W3A growth with their analysis and contract validation and get rewards. It will permit the extension to complement its databases quicker and have the ability to spot fraud extra precisely.

Web3 customers require the credibility of the options they use. How will you make sure that they’ll belief W3A?

Web3 Antivirus won’t ever ask for customers’ seed phrases or entry to wallets or property. Additionally, the answer is open-source, so customers can fork our code from GitHub and examine that no hidden processes are occurring.

What makes W3A totally different from its opponents?

Probably the most essential distinction is that Web3 Antivirus executes deep danger evaluation, informing customers concerning the total transaction danger degree and what actual threats are detected. Within the meantime, our opponents don’t carry out such a deep investigation.

W3A achieves this excessive degree of element due to its refined infrastructure that features advanced technical options, corresponding to indexing and structuring of knowledge derived straight from the Ethereum community.

Yet one more benefit is that W3A has a group of well-versed sensible contract builders and auditors who examine web3 scams each day and improve the answer.

What’s the most original danger that W3A detects?

Let’s say it’s a sensible contract’s capacity to adapt and rework in response to the variety of tokens a person owns. For instance, a wise contract can set a restrict on buying and selling a sure, often very precious, token and make it non-transferable. Thus, what at first looks as if a really worthwhile deal, seems to be a lack of cash.

Are you able to share your impressions about launching Web3 Antivirus on Product Hunt?

Certain, it was an excellent expertise! W3A was ranked within the prime 10 options of the day. We obtained a number of help and noticed real curiosity in our product. I imagine asserting Web3 Antivirus there helped us elevate consciousness among the many web3 neighborhood and encourage individuals who have been uncertain about collaborating in web3.