Crypto News Today- Binance Develops Countermeasure for Poisoning Scams After $68M Security Breach

Binance Develops ‘Antidote’ for $68M Scam Response

Crypto News– Binance’s security experts have crafted an antidote to combat the rising tide of address poisoning scams, which lure investors into unwittingly transferring funds to fraudulent addresses.

The security team at the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange devised an algorithm that successfully identified millions of tainted crypto addresses. According to a report shared with Cointelegraph:

We’ve devised a unique approach to spotting poisoned addresses, enabling us to warn users before they fall victim to criminals. This method proved crucial in flagging over 13.4 million spoofed addresses on BNB Smart Chain and 1.68 million on Ethereum.

Address poisoning, or spoofing, entails scammers sending a small amount of digital assets to a wallet resembling a potential victim’s address, thereby integrating it into the wallet’s transaction history. The hope is that the victim mistakenly sends funds to the fraudulent address.

Binance’s algorithm identifies spoofed addresses by scrutinizing suspicious transfers, such as those involving near-zero value or unknown tokens. It then matches them with potential victim addresses and timestamps malicious transactions to pinpoint the source of the poisoning.

The spoofed addresses are cataloged in the database of Web3 security firm HashDit, Binance’s security partner. This collaboration aims to safeguard the broader crypto industry from the scourge of poisoning scams, as detailed in Binance’s report.

Rising Worries Over Address Poisoning Post $68 Million Scam

The need for a preventive algorithm became apparent just two weeks ago, when an unknown trader fell victim to a $68 million address-poisoning scam. In a single transaction on May 3, they inadvertently sent $68 million worth of Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) to a spoofed address.

In a twist of fate, the thief returned the entire $68 million on May 13, following the spotlight cast on their potential Hong Kong-based IP addresses by numerous on-chain investigators. This suggests that the perpetrator wasn’t a white hat hacker, but rather a thief who grew apprehensive about the public scrutiny after the scam.

While address poisoning scams may appear easily avoidable, the reality is that most traders only verify the first and last digits of a wallet’s 42 alphanumeric characters. This is because most protocols only display these digits, leaving traders vulnerable to sophisticated spoofing tactics.

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