Address poisoning: a user transfers $68 million to a hacker’s wallet, here’s what we know


Samir Rahmoune

May 8, 2024 at 3:44 p.m.

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© Shutterstock

© Shutterstock

The owner of tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies lost the majority of his money in a mistake. And it’s due to address poisoning.

The Internet, as we know, is full of predators, ranging from quasi-state organizations to lone hackers, who try to steal money through different types of cyberattacks. And in this area, especially in view of the very high price of Bitcoin currently, the cryptocurrency sector represents a set of tempting prey for inventive hackers. The proof is that one of them has just robbed a victim of an astronomical sum, using the technique known as address poisoning.

Address poisoning, a scourge in the crypto world

When you hold cryptocurrencies, we know that wallets held outside of major platforms are real targets of potential attacks. Many of them have seen one day or another the cryptos kept on a Metamask wallet suddenly disappear. And in the field, there are a certain number of techniques for stealing cryptocurrencies, including so-called “address poisoning”.

This consists of carrying out transactions to a wallet using an address having the same first and last digits as the targeted address, with the vast majority of users referring to these two ends of the addresses to verify that it is good of theirs. Once these transactions are recorded in the wallet history, the hacker hopes that the victim, when they want to copy their address to carry out a transaction, will inadvertently copy the hacker’s wallet address, and therefore send them a sum of money which was not intended for him.

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68 million dollars stolen in one click!

A type of cyberattack which therefore includes an element of luck, but which has nevertheless just caused an unfortunate and significant victim. As the Internet user on

The hacker had managed to interfere in his victim’s history by previously sending him a sum of 0.05 ETH, which is worth around $150. An unfortunate story, which should remind all cryptonauts that when making a large transfer, it is better to first send a small amount to verify that the transaction to the desired address is carried out correctly, before then only to send larger amounts.

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Samir Rahmoune

Tech journalist, specializing in the impact of high technologies on international relations. I am passionate about all the new developments in the field (Blockchain, AI, quantum...), the...

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Tech journalist, specializing in the impact of high technologies on international relations. I am passionate about all the new developments in the field (Blockchain, AI, quantum...), energy issues, and astronomy. Often one foot in Asia, and always ready to put on the gloves.

Read other articles



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