Cryptocurrency scammers have successfully stolen a whopping 1,155 bitcoins wrapped using a technique that tricks users into making malicious transactions.
According to the blockchain security provider certec, a cryptocurrency user lost over $69.3 million worth of encrypted Bitcoin (WBTC) due to an address poisoning attack on May 3. Initially, the attacker reversed a transfer worth 0.05 Ethereum (ETH) before stealing WBTC in the next transaction.
Detective on the series ZackXBT Crypto security provider Cyvers confirmed the news. Meir Dolev, CTO at Cyvers, said the case was “probably the highest value lost due to an address poisoning scam” to date.
In an address poisoning scam, victims are offered an identical wallet address and are tricked into transferring assets to a scalper. A malicious headline usually imitates the four to six characters found at the beginning and end of the title.
Users fall prey to this method as it is sometimes difficult to detect differences, especially since wallet addresses can exceed 40 alphanumeric characters in some cases.
The incident has already surpassed the proceeds from the exploit and fraud throughout the past month, which amounted to approximately $25.7 million in digital assets. CertiK also noted that April saw the lowest levels of challenge fraud since 2021.