In a worrying turn of events, an anonymous crypto trader lost around $71 million in assets in an address poisoning scam. This incident has sparked a lot of tension in the crypto ecosystem, highlighting the need for improved security measures.
Trader loses 1,155 WBTC to face poisoning attack
According to multiple reports, an unknown trader fell victim to an address poisoning scam on Friday in which he lost 1,155 Wrapped BTC (WBTC) worth $71 million, wiping out 97% of the account balance. victim’s wallet.
As a reminder, address poisoning occurs when malicious actors trick innocent and unsuspecting traders into transferring their cryptocurrencies to a fraudulent address. Usually, these fake addresses are crafted via address mining to resemble the intended original address.
In August 2023, former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao raised an alert on this type of attack following an attempted theft of 20 million dollars from one of the exchange’s users. CZ explains that these scammers typically launched an attack by sending our dust transaction and inserting the fake address into the target’s transfer history.
The former Binance boss said this address manipulation took advantage of the fact that the user interface of most wallets only shows the beginning and end of addresses, hiding the middle part.
Regarding the recent address poisoning incident, Meir Dolev, founder of blockchain security company Cyvers, confirmed that the fraudsters’ address had the same six characters at the beginning and end as the original address.
He also said that the attackers had now exchanged the stolen WBTC for 22,956 ETH, which was distributed across 10 different wallets. Meanwhile, the scammers’ main address has been labeled as “fake” or “phishing” on Etherscan Explorer to prevent further attacks.
Crypto Losses Drop to $53 Million in April
According to a report By security firm Immunefi, total crypto losses in April 2024 were estimated at $53 million. Of these figures, around $50 million was lost to hacks, while fraud and scams accounted for only $3.03 million.
It is interesting to note that although the losses reported for April 2024 are quite heavy, they represent a drop of 60% compared to the values recorded in March 2024, and above all a drop of 46% compared to April 2023.
Nonetheless, the recent address poisoning attack has indicated the need for constant vigilance from investors as well as continued innovation in terms of blockchain network security.
Total crypto market valued at $2.261 trillion on the daily chart | Source: TOTAL chart on Tradingview.com
Featured image from Getty Images/iStockphoto, chart from Tradingview.com
