I want to know more about Wallet address poisoning

[KiaKia]

Don't say because I am senior member, I should know better, well I don't and I am willing to know now, so as to improve my wallet security every day if possible.

My question is about crypto wallet address poisoning.

1. How are scammers poisoning a wallet address?

2. Is it true that scammers only need to send a fake transaction or fake NFT to your wallet address to get it poisoned?

3. What are the capability of a poisoned wallet address in favour to the hacker?

4. Can address poisoning affect Bitcoin wallet too, like Electrum?

I did my own research but I am not sure, I read that if a wallet address is poisoned the transaction history will be affected, the trick is capable of changing your last two or three transaction to a fake wallet address.

The fake address will have the same first and the last four alphabets as the last original address that you sent some coins into the last time you use your wallet.

I can't confirm if this is the true figure of what address poisoning means, is this right or not?

[1714885026]

1714885026

[Zaguru12]

1. Scammers poison an address by sending little amount of coin into the particular wallet that they want to monitor

2. It is actually not a fake transaction but sometimes a small amount that is refer to as dust amount most at times cannot be spend but if the price should increase you can spend the coin just like other coins.

3. They wish capitalize on the potential victim negligence, such that the victim can copy their address when sending out coins instead of there’s, this mostly happens to people that copy address from transaction history.

4. Yes it can affect just any wallet because the hacker just simply sends bitcoin or other coin to the intended address which is not wallet specific. But for wallets like electrum where you can use multiple addresses and also coin control you can simply just freeze that address and continue using other addresses not like some wallets were you have only one address to use.

The type of address that the hacker will create will depends on how he wants, he can try as much as possible to even reduce the difference to just 2 characters, this type of address are mostly vanity addresses. But still it is not changing the address the victim is the one copying the wrong address.

You can read up on address poisoning by Pmalek

[Odusko]

Being a senior member or even higher doesn't make anyone to know everything in this field, and your ability to ask is what opens up your mind to build and gain knowledge.
Wallet security is a key feature in the cryptocurrency space and the way and manner we control and protect ourselves from wallet attackers is the sole responsibility 9f the individual,  so for that you are very right to have come out to make such an inquiry on how better to secure your wallet.
So for that let me suggest to you to search for this topic, because you will find a hand load of information on the internet from different sources that will help you shape your idea and enlighten your understanding more.

[Ultegra134]

1. Scammers poison an address by sending little amount of coin into the particular wallet that they want to monitor

2. It is actually not a fake transaction but sometimes a small amount that is refer to as dust amount most at times cannot be spend but if the price should increase you can spend the coin just like other coins.

3. They wish capitalize on the potential victim negligence, such that the victim can copy there address when sending out coins instead of there’s, this mostly happens to people that copy address from transaction history

I've also received some random tokens—millions of them, actually—and I remember a wallet tracking website (supposedly to monitor your investments) displaying millions in value. Isn't that wallet poisoning, or is it simply a dust attack? Aren't they depending on you actually connecting your wallet to their fake website to attempt to sell them? I remember reading that they either steal your wallet information and/or charge you a ton of money in transaction fees for tokens that aren't actually worth anything.

P.S There's no shame in asking OP, nobody knows everything, no matter their status.

[Oshosondy]

Let us say you have 500 USDT on Tron blockchain. You send it to an exchange. Immediately scammers can send you 0.000005 USDT. The scammers think if you want to send to the exchange next time that you can send to the address the small coins is sent to so that you will send to their scam address.

I do not see it happen to bitcoin but we can say dust coin are like that too. But the difference is that poisoning address will be similar to your address, especially the last 5 characters, unlike bitcoin address of which that is not possible.

[Hatchy]

Don't say because I am senior member, I should know better, well I don't and I am willing to know now, so as to improve my wallet security every day if possible.

It's okay to ask questions about things you don't know. I recently learned about wallet poisoning after seeing your post, and I did some quick research to understand it better. Initially, I confused it with a dust attack because they share similarities, like hackers sending small amounts of cryptocurrency to users' addresses. However, they are different.

A dust attack is a tactic used to track or compromise users' anonymity and monitor their transactions. Wallet poisoning, on the other hand, is more serious. It shares similarities with a dust attack but has a greater risk of scamming users who blindly copy and paste addresses from their transaction history. Hackers use a vanity address generator to create addresses that resemble others, leading senders to unwittingly send funds to fake addresses.

It's a tricky scheme that many people might not notice right away. To avoid falling victim, it's best not to copy addresses from your transaction history. Instead, always ask for a recipient's address before sending a new transaction.

[Taskford]

Don't say because I am senior member, I should know better, well I don't and I am willing to know now, so as to improve my wallet security every day if possible.

My question is about crypto wallet address poisoning.

1. How are scammers poisoning a wallet address?

2. Is it true that scammers only need to send a fake transaction or fake NFT to your wallet address to get it poisoned?

3. What are the capability of a poisoned wallet address in favour to the hacker?

4. Can address poisoning affect Bitcoin wallet too, like Electrum?

I did my own research but I am not sure, I read that if a wallet address is poisoned the transaction history will be affected, the trick is capable of changing your last two or three transaction to a fake wallet address.

The fake address will have the same first and the last four alphabets as the last original address that you sent some coins into the last time you use your wallet.

I can't confirm if this is the true figure of what address poisoning means, is this right or not?

It doesn't mean you are a high rank member in this forum you know everything about crypto that's why its really good for anyone to ask regarding on topic they want to ask so that they can learn a lot also by opening this topic for sure there's a lot of people would also know about the topic been discussed by a lot of users here.

But to simplify things aside from the one posted by other user much better you should open up this site/blog explaining about address poisoning https://transak.com/blog/what-are-address-poisoning-attacks

For sure we can learn a lot from this and we know how to avoid such thing so that we will not get compromised by said attacks.

[Zaguru12]

I've also received some random tokens—millions of them, actually—and I remember a wallet tracking website (supposedly to monitor your investments) displaying millions in value. Isn't that wallet poisoning, or is it simply a dust attack? Aren't they depending on you actually connecting your wallet to their fake website to attempt to sell them? I remember reading that they either steal your wallet information and/or charge you a ton of money in transaction fees for tokens that aren't actually worth anything.

Yes both address poisoning and dust attack are almost similar because they scammer in both cases will send bitcoin to potential victim address just that in dust attack, the amount is small and it is called dust. This your case can be more categorized as address poisoning. They simply want to lure to trying to spend that token and that will lead them to their site and then they use phishing attack method when you click the link.

My advice has always been;
1. Never ever click on random links or connect your wallet to some sites. This is common to wallets that have DApps feature. If there is need to do that for altcoin investors use a burner wallet for that.

2. Do not copy address from past transactions, use an address book.

3. Check your transaction details before sending coins out.

4. Transfer your coins from CEX immediately to custodial wallet if the attacked address is on the exchange.

[REDice]

i have a bad experience from withdrawal address site to another site deposit address. since i copy the address and paste to designated address. come out not site address the address its hacker address. i lost my funds. its happen twice to me

[cryptoaddictchie]

Well the trick is if you dont know the tokens then dont try to attempt claiming or selling. You knew that there are many scammers some will even sent stablecoins that worth a lot but in reality its fake. Its quite annoying but what we can do these scammers like to spam these tokens for anyone who will fall for them. But simply ignore of them. Good thing some explorer flagged them as scam already. Dont believe on its value cause they might jabe a way to make it appears like its valuable.

[hd49728]

They can do poisoning attack to your wallet addresses but if you are careful, you will not be scammed.

People are careless, don't check addresses one, two or three times before broadcasting a transaction are victims. In my opinion, it is not an effective scam type against careful people.

Some topics to understand more about this scam attack.
Address poisoning scam.
What are Address Poisoning Scams?
Alert to Trust Wallet users: There's an ongoing address spam, be more cautious.
I got scammed out of 100000 dollars by fake 0 dollars withdrawal on BSC
Someone sent ERC20 from my cold storage

[Lucius]

@Zaguru12, +1 because you know how to use a search engine, which I would certainly suggest to anyone who is interested in something before opening a new topic.


Regarding this specific "attack", I have already written before that it is difficult for me to imagine someone who could be so naive to be deceived in this way. I believe that it has been warned thousands of times that we must always check the coin addresses to which we send and receive transactions, and that such nonsense as copying an address from a transaction is nothing but a reckless action that obviously costs a lot for some.

I also think that the word "poisoning" is a bit exaggerated and scares users even more than it should. I would rather use the word "luring", something like when fishermen catch fish, but the bait still attracts only some fish, while the cautious ones avoid a bad fate.

[satscraper]

1. How are scammers poisoning a wallet address?

 They make transaction to address intended to be poisoned from the address which differs by a few characters ( ordinary several first and/or last ones) from that address.

4. Can address poisoning affect Bitcoin wallet too, like Electrum?

I don't think the poisoning will have some noticeable effect on Bitcoin relevant addresses unless their owner is   ignoramus on the  matter of their selection for his transactions.

[Doan9269]

1. How are scammers poisoning a wallet address?

They will do that by sending into your wallet address a little amount of money, the wallet address they will use in sending to you will be similar to the one that you often send transaction to, so that they can make a mistake by picking their own address instead of yours that was intended for and make payment into their own wallet address instead of your own, it is sometimes not good and safe, leaving your wallet address open to the public.

2. Is it true that scammers only need to send a fake transaction or fake NFT to your wallet address to get it poisoned?

Its a real transaction and not fake, they only send to you so very little amount closer to dust.

3. What are the capability of a poisoned wallet address in favour to the hacker?

they can just steal your coins by a single mistake of taking their address for yours and that's all, your money is gone for life.

4. Can address poisoning affect Bitcoin wallet too, like Electrum?

As long as they have your wallet address, they can send you the transaction and target you.

[hatshepsut93]

Tiny amounts of sats are sometimes sent to addresses that are linked to your identity in a hope that it would help them link more of your addresses. I and many other members of this forum have received such dust amounts to addresses that we staked here for a proof of identity. If we don't practice coin control and accidentally use these sats in our transaction, this would link our forum identity to more of our addresses, which is what the attackers want.

[hd49728]

Tiny amounts of sats are sometimes sent to addresses that are linked to your identity in a hope that it would help them link more of your addresses. I and many other members of this forum have received such dust amounts to addresses that we staked here for a proof of identity. If we don't practice coin control and accidentally use these sats in our transaction, this would link our forum identity to more of our addresses, which is what the attackers want.

With altcoins, especially scam altcoins, they will try to look at top rich list wallet addresses of other tokens, to distribute their scam airdrops.

Those scam altcoins even don't have colorful and icon which were verified by blockchain explorers like Etherescan.io or bscscan.com. Those scam tokens have grey icons with a default native currency of that blockchain icon. Stay away from such airdrops because if anyone interact with those scam smart contracts, they will lose money.

With Bitcoin, I agree with you that good practice of coin control will help us to protect our privacy and identity.

[Gladitorcomeback]

My question is about crypto wallet address poisoning.

1. How are scammers poisoning a wallet address?


2. Is it true that scammers only need to send a fake transaction or fake NFT to your wallet address to get it poisoned?

Actually poisoning wallet doesn't mean that your wallet will be automatically hacked or just receiving NFT/tokens your will will be drained. It is trick to deceive those people who copying their address from transaction history to save time and doesn't care more about security. scammers send little amount to that address having same address (First and last). Lazy people just checking first and last digits and they copy address and send fund to help scammers.

NFT is also working in same and here NFT showing that you wins any fund and also there are site link for claiming rewards and when we open site, gives access,we loss our fund. So nothing is direct but our laziness and less knowledge makes scammers work easy.  Electrum wallet could also be poisoned with sending low fund but more safe than wallets used for connecting sites

[Benedictare]

   Address poisoning also known as spoofing is an attack vector based on the carelessnees of the users that a scammer tries to steal from a crypto wallet owner by sending money money into the scammers address some of these scammers  watches a block chain for transactions, which they will now send a little quantity of crypto to a similar address like the original ,and when the real owner want to send more crypto, they will unknowingly use the wrong look alike address.
  
   The reason why they succeed is because of the human error involved like not carefully checking your full address before sending crypto and immediately it's sent to wrong address no more return. In other to avoid these always double click your address before sending.

[taufik123]

1. How are scammers poisoning a wallet address?

There are actually many ways that scammers poison or infect the target's wallet.
One of them is through phishing dapps, fake applications, or other portals that allow victims to get trapped and associate and approve the wallet to be fully connected.

2. Is it true that scammers only need to send a fake transaction or fake NFT to your wallet address to get it poisoned?

It won't be that easy, they will only send Dusting Coins or NFTs that look legitimate, but victims will need to sell them according to the directions already in place on the token or NFT information.
This will refer to the first point that will lead to website Dapps, Phishing etc.

3. What are the capability of a poisoned wallet address in favour to the hacker?

Hackers will take over the wallet, and usually they will use Bots to make withdrawals quickly by luring using the Balance for Fees sent to the wallet.
This will be an FCFS event with users so that drained wallets cannot be recovered, unless Bot Vs Bot for FCFS coins or tokens that have a high price.

4. Can address poisoning affect Bitcoin wallet too, like Electrum?

This depends on what wallet is targeted, Usually Bitcoin Wallets have their own methods by using malware or ransomware that will infect the Application or device used. There are many methods that scammers can do,

Thus, you must be aware of all the methods carried out by scammers, you must know more about what the methods are.
We need to be more Up To Date around wallet security and not be careless on private key storage and device security.
Make sure everything is safe and under control.

Example: NFT Wallet-draining Exploit

Source: https://medium.com/coinmonks/new-nft-wallet-draining-exploit-degen-meta-f81da02adb6f

[Cookdata]

Don't say because I am senior member, I should know better, well I don't and I am willing to know now, so as to improve my wallet security every day if possible.

This is why here is a forum, we all learn everyday because learning is continues process. I have learn new things today from a full member account, sometimes I just think rank doesn't define who we are by knowledge. Here are my answers to your questions.

My question is about crypto wallet address poisoning.

1. How are scammers poisoning a wallet address?

2. Is it true that scammers only need to send a fake transaction or fake NFT to your wallet address to get it poisoned?

Wallet can be poison when by anyone but what really makes scammers to poison a wallet is when they notice that you have funds on your wallet. Now, what they do is that they send you spammy tokens, this is done most often on BSC wallet addresses, Ethereum wallet addresses and other EVM compatible wallets, they sent you fake tokens like already listed coins but the one they are going to send you will be fake. For example.

You have an EVM wallet address as: 0xvbgd................hgyhh and you have 500 $USDT on the wallet and when the scammer search expler and saw that you have such amount. He will construct a smart contract token similar to what has been created already. He can create a fake TWT ticker name  and send you some amount that is very similar to the original Trust wallet token which is also TWT but from smart contract address, they can never be the same.

On seeing that sent to your wallet, the first thing that will come to your mind is to swap it because you are unaware and might thought it's airdrop. The moment you try to swap that fake TWT to USDT, your wallet will be drained, your balance of $500 will be wipe out from your wallet because you just communicated with the smart contracts that was written to sweep your wallet to another destination wallet address. This is how scammers use wallet poisoning to scam people.

4. Can address poisoning affect Bitcoin wallet too, like Electrum?

I have not seen Bitcoin wallet been attacked of wallet poisoning but to be at safer side, don't accept any ordinals token sent you, they are mostly trap to track your UTXO and knows your other remaining wallet so they can target you or possibly hack you.