Over $2 million in Ethereum stolen in subtle phishing scheme

A latest phishing assault has left a crypto investor reeling from a lack of 501 ETH, valued at roughly $2 million, staked by liquid restaking protocol Ether.Fi.

On-chain information reveals that the theft occurred earlier at this time and concerned two transactions. In a single transaction, 426 ETH had been siphoned, adopted by one other 75 ETH in a subsequent transaction. On the time of the assault, these stolen belongings had been valued at roughly $1.6 million and $276,000, respectively.

On account of the theft, the pockets’s internet value plummeted by over 99.93%, leaving them with solely $1,453.

Rip-off Sniffer, a Web3 safety platform, recognized the assault as using an “IncreaseAllowance” transaction, a signature generally related to phishing schemes that allow attackers to entry funds with out the sufferer’s authorization.

Over $100 million misplaced to phishing scams

This incident happens amidst a surge in phishing scams focusing on the trade this yr.

Based on information offered by Rip-off Sniffer, $104 million was defrauded from roughly 97,000 crypto customers within the preliminary months of this yr because of phishing assaults. In January, losses amounted to $57.7 million, adopted by $46.8 million in February.

A breakdown of the assaults exhibits that Ethereum customers bore the brunt, dropping $78 million in belongings, together with ETH and ERC20 tokens.

The first methodology employed by cybercriminals concerned duping victims into signing malicious phishing signatures, corresponding to “Uniswap Permit2” and “increaseAllowance,” which enabled the malicious gamers to realize unauthorized entry to their victims’ funds.

“Many of the thefts of all ERC20 tokens had been because of belongings being stolen because of signing phishing signatures corresponding to Allow, IncreaseAllowance, and Uniswap Permit2,” Rip-off Sniffer defined.

Rip-off Sniffer revealed that the majority victims fell prey to misleading feedback on social media platforms, notably X (previously Twitter). The attackers usually masquerade as professional crypto organizations to lure unsuspecting people to phishing websites the place their digital belongings are stolen.

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