Crypto scammers recently pulled off a major heist, making away with a staggering 1,155 wrapped Bitcoin through a clever deception tactic. According to blockchain security expert CertiK, a cryptocurrency enthusiast lost over $69.3 million in wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) due to an address-poisoning attack on May 3. The scam began with a 0.05 Ethereum (ETH) transfer that served as a ruse before the scammers made off with the WBTC in the subsequent transaction.
This incident was corroborated by on-chain investigator ZachXBT and crypto security provider Cyvers, with Cyvers CTO Meir Dolev describing it as βpossibly the most significant value lost in an address poisoning scam so far.β Address poisoning scams involve tricking victims into sending assets to a fraudulent address that closely resembles the legitimate one. These malicious addresses typically mimic the starting and ending characters of the real address, making it hard for users to detect the difference.
With wallet addresses often exceeding 40 characters, users can easily fall victim to this scam. The stolen funds from this incident have already surpassed the combined proceeds from various exploits and scams in the previous month, which totaled around $25.7 million in digital assets. CertiK also reported that April witnessed the lowest levels of defi scams since 2021.
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