Blockchain security firm CybersAlert reported that an anonymous cryptocurrency trader lost 1,155 Wrapped Bitcoins (WBTC) worth $70.5 million due to poisoning.
The company stated:
“Are we wrong, or did someone really lose $68 million worth of WBTC? Our system detected another address that fell victim to address poisoning and lost 1,155 WBTC. I lost it.”
Meir Dolev, founder and CTO of Cyvers, said: Added It said this was “probably the largest amount ever lost to address poisoning fraud.”
address poisoning
Address poisoning is one of the tactics used by malicious organizations to exploit crypto traders. This nefarious act usually lures the victims into transferring their digital assets to fraudulent addresses owned by the scammers.
The technique involves creating an address very similar to the target's address and using the same starting and ending characters to fool unsuspecting victims.
It then performs crypto transfers from the newly created matching address to the target wallet, contaminating the transaction history. Unknowingly, instead of looking at their own records, the victim copies the tainted address from the transaction log, which sends the funds to the hacker's wallet.
Notably, this type of attack is somewhat prevalent in the industry, with former Binance CEO Changpeng Chao highlighting one such incident last year.At that time, Mr. Zhao Said:
“Scammers are now very good at generating addresses with the same starting and ending characters, which most people check when making cryptocurrency transfers. In fact, many The wallet hides the middle part of the address with “…” to make the UI look better. ”
