Clipboard hacking

[Edith1994]

What is clipboard hacking?
 The good news is that clipboard hacking does not mean you now need to be suspicious of people bearing clipboards. The bad news is that it is a genuine and insidious method for stealing your crypto.

As they are hexadecimal (base16) and are many characters long, crypto wallet addresses do not lend themselves to being memorised or typed in manually, just as you would type in an email or username.

Enter copy and paste, the unsung hero of crypto transactions. Many wallets and exchanges, including MetaMask, include built-in 'copy' or 'copy to clipboard' shortcuts that allow you to copy your wallet address with a single click. These features smooth the process of pasting into a third-party site to which you may be transferring tokens, for example.

Clipboard hacking exploits the copy and paste function to rob you. Rather than relying on users' inexperience or exploiting their trust, malicious actors will create and disseminate malware.

Once this malware has infected your computer, most likely hidden within a seemingly innocuous download, it will automatically intercept your clipboard, scan for crypto addresses, and, if it identifies one, replace it with their own. So by the time you hit paste, your address has been replaced, and you will be about to send your transaction to the hacker(s).  

Naturally, as blockchain transactions are irreversible, there is no way to retrieve your funds once they are sent.

How can I protect myself?

A logical first port of call is to ensure you have robust anti-malware software installed, and keep it updated. Your software should identify most potential clipboard hacking malware programs, notify you, and quarantine them before they can affect your crypto activity.

However, since there is a possibility that your anti-malware software may not detect the program, the only way to be safe is to double- and triple-check addresses before you confirm any transaction. Some hardware wallets may prompt you to do this anyway, but as transactions are irreversible, it is a worthwhile habit to adopt.
https://metamask.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4412217080091-Common-scams-and-how-to-avoid-them

[1715281031]

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[1715281031]

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[Upgrade00]

Naturally, as blockchain transactions are irreversible, there is no way to retrieve your funds once they are sent.

There is no way to retrieve your funds once they are confirmed, not sent. Unconfirmed transactions can possibly be double spent.

However, since there is a possibility that your anti-malware software may not detect the program, the only way to be safe is to double- and triple-check addresses before you confirm any transaction.

This is a very important advice that crypto enthusiasts to take into account. It is not enough to glance over the first and last few words, but take out a minute to actually go through the entire characters and cross check them multiple times.

[TheBeardedBaby]

There's a very nice and tidy guide made by LoyceV here
There are easy steps to follow to protect yourself from loosing money, read it.

[Charles-Tim]

Just in addition which is not included in the OP, clipboard malware is not only possible when sending bitcoin to someone, the problem is the address you copy and paste that the malware changed to a hackers address, thereby, sending the coin to a wrong address. So, clipboard malware can affect either the sender or the recipient. It can also affect the recipient by changing the address he wants to send to the sender for the sender to send bitcoin. In this second case, the sender will receive a wrong address.

How can I protect myself?

A logical first port of call is to ensure you have robust anti-malware software installed, and keep it updated. Your software should identify most potential clipboard hacking malware programs, notify you, and quarantine them before they can affect your crypto activity.

Reputed anti-malware is good, but how about knowing what is causing the downloading and installation of malware, that first is the best to do. Avoiding ads and making use of ublock, avoiding unreputed sites, avoiding malware generally is possible. But like you said, we must still check if the address you are sending to the person that wants to send the coin or that you are sending the coin to changed, so if changed, it would be known it is clipboard malware.

Naturally, as blockchain transactions are irreversible, there is no way to retrieve your funds once they are sent.

There is no way to retrieve your funds once they are confirmed, not sent. Unconfirmed transactions can possibly be double spent.

Exactly. But in this type of case, most likely the transaction would have been confirmed before knowing of the malware if not known before, this will likely be known when the coin has been sent but the recipient complaining that he has not seen it yet after it has been known to the sender that it has been confirmed.