A user lost $68 million in crypto as a result of an attack via spam transactions

An unknown user lost $68 million in cryptocurrency due to carelessness and an attack through spam transactions. writes RBC Crypto. Experts from the Cyvers service were the first to discover this, and then confirmed a cryptodetective known in the crypto community under the pseudonym ZachXBT.

Someone sent scammers 1155 WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin, a “wrapped” version of Bitcoin for sending via the Ethereum blockchain) worth more than $68 million at the exchange rate at the time of the transfer, becoming the victim of a spam attack, which is also called poisoning (“infection”) or dust attack (“dust attack”)

Its essence is that small or zero amounts of cryptocurrency are sent to the victim’s wallet from addresses that are just a few characters different from the address to which the victim regularly makes transfers (for example, the usual exchange address for depositing funds or a second wallet).

Attackers, using special software, generate a crypto wallet with an address whose set of characters at the beginning and end is identical to the set of characters in the victim’s trusted address, to which they often send cryptocurrency. The essence of the attack is that, through inattention, the victim copies the address from which the transfer from the attackers came and uses it to send funds. It is visually difficult to notice the difference in the character set, and the interface of some wallets completely truncates the display of the full address.

If you open data about the victim's wallet in any blockchain browser, his transaction history shows that he has received several null transfers from addresses that look very similar to the address he used previously.

Experts say this is the largest recorded loss from such an attack.