Pink Drainer, a well-known crypto wallet-draining group, recently fell victim to an “address poisoning” scam, losing 10 Ether (worth around $30,000) in late June. The irony of scammers being scammed highlights the ongoing cat-and-mouse game within the crypto space.
Address Poisoning Scam Exposed
MistTrack, a crypto compliance platform, reported the incident on July 7 through a post on X. The platform explained that address poisoning involves an attacker sending small amounts of cryptocurrency from a wallet with an address that closely resembles the target’s regular wallet. The goal is to trick the target into mistakenly sending funds to the incorrect address.
MistTrack elaborated, “Scammers use bots to monitor new transactions. Although they can’t fully replicate the address, they make the first and last characters similar, hoping the victim will copy the scam address instead of their original one.”
In this case, the attackers created a wallet address nearly identical to Pink Drainer’s previous wallet, which led to Pink Drainer inadvertently sending 10 ETH to the fake address.
Also Read: Sam Ikkurty Fined $120 Million for Crypto Fraud
Pink Drainer’s Surprising Retirement
This incident comes just a month after Pink Drainer announced its retirement on May 17, having reached its goal of helping steal over $85 million in crypto assets. Data from Dune Analytics confirms that Pink Drainer was responsible for $85.3 million in crypto thefts since July 2023.
Despite Pink Drainer’s retirement, other drainer toolkit services like Angel Drainer, Pussy Drainer, and Venom Drainer continue to assist malicious actors in stealing crypto assets. The landscape of crypto security remains perilous, with new threats emerging as quickly as old ones are neutralized.
