"Scamming the Scammer": Pink Drainer Lost $30K to Address Poisoning

Address poisoning is a scam where attackers send small amounts of crypto from a wallet with a nearly identical address to the target's, making its way to transaction history. This tactic aims to trick the target into accidentally sending funds to the scammer's address.

MistTrack, a crypto tracking and compliance platform, reported on July 7 that Pink Drainer lost 10 Ether (nearly $30,000) to a fraudulent wallet address in late June.

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According to MistTrack, scammers use bots to scan for new transactions. While they can't decipher the entire address, they can manipulate the first and last few characters to resemble the legitimate address. This trick relies on the victim copying the fraudulent address instead of their own.

In Pink Drainer's case, the attackers used a wallet address with a similar identifier to one of Pink Drainer's wallets. This led to Pink Drainer mistakenly transferring 10 ETH to the fake address.

This incident follows Pink Drainer's May 17 announcement that it was ceasing operations after stealing over $85 million in crypto, as reported by crypto investigator ZachXBT.

The irony of Pink Drainer being scammed serves as a reminder of the constant threat of scams and the need for vigilance in crypto.

In other news, a trader lost $68 million in Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) to an address poisoning scam.