Ethereum Deal with Poisoning Assaults Steal $740K After Fusaka

Recent record network activity on Ethereum could be partially linked to a wave of address poisoning attacks taking advantage of extremely low gas fees, said security researcher Andrey Sergeenkov.

Cointelegraph reported on Friday that network activity retention nearly doubled to 8 million addresses in a month, while daily transactions hit an all-time high of almost 2.9 million.

The week starting Jan. 12 saw 2.7 million new addresses, 170% higher than typical values, while daily transactions surged to over 2.5 million, said Sergeenkov. 

However, Sergeenkov said the uptick could be due to a type of mass spam attack known as “address poisoning,” which has become more economical after the December Fusaka Ethereum network upgrade cut transaction fees.

Network fees fell more than 60% in the weeks that followed the upgrade in early December.

“Address poisoning has become disproportionately attractive for attackers,” said the researcher, adding: “you can’t scale infrastructure without addressing user security first!” 

$740,000 lost in address poisoning attacks 

Address poisoning involves sending small transactions from wallet addresses that resemble legitimate ones, duping users into copying the wrong address when making a transaction.

The researcher analyzed small stablecoin transactions, finding that 67% of new addresses receive less than $1 in the first transaction. 

Related: Efforts to bulletproof Ethereum are paying off in user metrics

Automated smart contracts distribute tiny amounts of stablecoins to millions of addresses, with 3.8 million addresses receiving such “dust” as their first transaction.

“These poisoning addresses then distribute dust to millions of potential victims, creating false entries in transaction histories.”

So far, over $740,000 has been stolen this way from 116 victims, he said. 

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