🌎 Whale Loses $55.47M in DAI to Phishing Attack, Funds Converted to ETH

A whale address recently lost a significant amount of DAI tokens to a phishing attack after unknowingly signing a fraudulent transaction. On-chain data confirms that the losses amounted to $55.47 million in DAI. The whale’s funds were stored in Maker, a decentralized finance protocol built on Ethereum.

A whale lost $55.47M in DAI in a phishing attack!

The incident occurred when the whale carelessly signed an unknown transaction, which altered the ownership of the DAI tokens to a phishing address “0x0000db5c…41e70000”. This change in ownership allowed the attacker to take full control of the funds. When the whale later attempted to withdraw the funds, the transaction failed due to the ownership alteration. The hacker then swiftly moved the stolen DAI tokens to a newly created address.

Through this new address, the attacker has been converting the stolen tokens to Ethereum and rerouting them to other wallets. So far, the hacker swapped 27.5 million DAI for approximately 10,625 ETH, ultimately moving most of the funds to CoW, a trading protocol.

Phishing Attacks on the Rise

Phishing attacks have become increasingly common in the cryptocurrency world. In June, a MakerDAO delegate lost $11 million in various tokens, including USDe, to a similar scam. In May, an NFT trader lost over $145,000 in Bored Ape Yacht Club collectibles, while another investor saw $101,000 in multiple cryptocurrencies vanish due to phishing.

Statistics on Phishing Attacks

Recent research by Chainalysis confirms that since May 2021, approval attacks have accounted for an astonishing $2.7 billion in stolen assets. Previous reports also revealed that victims lost over $46 million to phishing attacks in February this year.