In the ever-evolving world of cybercrime, a new form of malware, known as “Wallet Drainers,” has been making significant strides. This malware, discovered by Scam Sniffer, is deployed on phishing websites to trick users into authorizing harmful transactions, leading to the theft of assets from their crypto wallets.
In a recent report, Scam Sniffer revealed that over the past year, Wallet Drainers have stolen more than $295 million in assets from approximately 324,000 victims. On March 11 alone, nearly $7 million was stolen, primarily due to fluctuations in USDC rates. Victims were lured to phishing sites impersonating Circle. Significant thefts also occurred around March 24 when Arbitrum’s Discord was compromised, coinciding with their airdrop date.
Scam Sniffer noted that peaks in theft often strategically coincided with group-related events, such as airdrops or hacking incidents. After Monkey Drainer was exposed by ZachXBT, they declared their exit following six months of activity. Venom subsequently assumed control of a significant portion of its clientele. New entities like MS, Inferno, Angel, and Pink emerged around March. When Venom ceased operations around April, many phishing groups shifted to alternative services.
The scale and pace of these activities have escalated dramatically. For example, Monkey drained $16 million over six months, while Inferno Drainer surpassed this significantly, looting $81 million in just nine months. Assuming a 20% Drainer fee, these entities profited at least $47 million from the sale of wallet drainer services.
Phishing sites primarily attract visitors through various means such as hacking attacks, organic traffic, and paid traffic. Hacking attacks involve breaching the official project Discord and Twitter accounts, attacking official project frontends or utilizing libraries. Organic traffic involves distribution of NFT or Token airdrops, assuming control of expired Discord links, as well as spam mentions and comments on Twitter. Paid traffic involves Google search ads and Twitter ads.
While hacking attacks have a widespread impact, the community typically responds swiftly, often within a 10-50 minute timeframe. Moreover, airdrops, organic traffic, paid advertising, and the takeover of Discord links are considerably less conspicuous. Additionally, there is a more targeted form of phishing involving personal private messages.
This News Article was automatically generated by Bob the Bot (AI)
| Information | Details |
|---|---|
| Geography | Global |
| Countries | |
| Sentiment | negative |
| Relevance Score | 1 |
| People | ZachXBT |
| Companies | Arbitrum, Circle, Scam Sniffer, Binance Futures |
| Currencies | USDC |
| Securities | None |
