SlowMist Warns of Increased Address Poisoning Attacks on the EOS Blockchain
EOS blockchain users are targeted by address poisoning scams; attackers mimic legitimate addresses to steal funds.
Security analytics firm SlowMist recently alerted users to avoid copying addresses from their transaction histories, emphasizing that attackers are actively exploiting this habit to hijack funds. The EOS blockchain is currently grappling with a rise in address poisoning scams, prompting experts to issue urgent warnings.
SlowMist Raises Alarm Over EOS Scam Surge
SlowMist revealed that malicious actors are bombarding the EOS network with fraudulent transactions designed to mimic legitimate exchanges. By sending as little as 0.001 of EOS tokens to random wallets, the scammers insert deceptive addresses into users’ transaction records.
Moreover, these poisoned addresses are designed to closely resemble the address of trusted accounts, tricking victims into sending funds to criminals instead of intended recipients.
For the scams to work, the attackers are creating counterfeit accounts with names nearly identical to that of popular exchanges. For example, the fraudulent account “binanecleos” is a rip-off of Binance’s official EOS address “binancecleos,” while “oktothemoon” is made to resemble OKX’s legitimate “okbtothemoon.” These subtle typos sometimes eludes inexperienced users, especially users who rely on copying addresses from past transaction records.
Furthermore, SlowMist reports that the scammers sometimes pair the fake addresses with messages, urging users to send larger amounts of funds to the scam address. Unfortunately, once funds reach the fraudulent wallet, recovery is nearly impossible.
How Address Poisoning Exploits User Habits
Address poisoning is one of the oldest exploits scammers use to capitalize on the common practice of copying wallet addresses from transaction histories.
After identifying a target’s frequently used addresses, attackers generate similar look-alikes with minor differences of sometimes as little as a single letter and “seed” them into the victim’s records through miniscule transfers.
This tactic pounces on users’ trust in their own transaction logs. This is because many individuals falsely assume that their transaction history is safe, and scammers take advantage of this very assumption.
Despite the attacks on the blockchain, the network has been experiencing positive news. The price of EOS rose over 18% to $0.58 according to data from Coingecko following news of its rebrand to Vaulta and a shift toward web3 banking.
