Blockchain security platform Scam Sniffer It recently exposed a cryptocurrency trader who lost $35 million in minutes. This trader is said to have lost this amount thanks to social engineering Crypto scamwhich is still rampant in the industry.
How This Cryptocurrency Trader Lost $35 Million
Scam Sniffer revealed in a post by These scammers immediately sold the funds, causing the price of dETH to fall rapidly. This is a scandal too He said It led to attacks on protocols such as PAC Finance and Orbit Finance.
This ‘permit’ feature was introduced in Ethereum network By proposing an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 2612 to help solve the challenge of having to pay gas fees multiple times.
This authorization function allows traders to sign an approval message off-chain, essentially allowing them to make transactions without gas. However, as we saw with this cryptocurrency trader who lost $35 million, the drawback of these authorization signatures is that they are more vulnerable to social engineering scams, unlike what happens when approvals are done on-chain.
Scammers can easily trick users into giving consents by giving them the impression that they are simply logging into a website while giving consent to transfer their funds from their wallets. Furthermore, unlike the red flags that appear when signing an onchain consent, there are no signatures on the declaration.
Phishing scams remain a common form of attack in the cryptocurrency space
Phishing scams It remains one of the most widespread social engineering attacks in the cryptocurrency space. Sniffer scam Drawing community attention to how KOR Protocol X’s account was recently hacked and posted phishing tweets. They noted that these phishing tweets from prominent X accounts are often the result of social engineering attacks that enable malicious applications.
According to a phishing scam by Scam Sniffer in September a reportabout 10,000 victims lost nearly $46 million to cryptocurrency phishing scams. Meanwhile, in the third quarter of this year, up to $127 million Phishing losses An average of 11,000 victims every month. Two victims were said to be responsible for $87 million of these losses.
Interestingly, one victim lost $32 million by signing a release, similar to this cryptocurrency trader who lost $35 million. Another trader lost $1 million by copying the wrong address from a “tainted transfer history.” Scam Sniffer revealed that most of the phishing attacks were carried out by clicking on phishing links from fake accounts on the X platform and Google phishing ads.
The platform recently provided an example of a phishing ad from Google. They highlighted the “Chainlist” ad on the search engine. This ad prompts traders to link their wallets, and their wallets are drained after they sign the phishing signature.
Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView