Address poisoning recently cost a victim over $12 million in January

[_act_]

Between December last year to January of this year, two victims have been affected with address poisoning. $50 million was stolen from someone in December while the one that was noticed in January cost the victim $12.2 million.

You can read it on the news yourself: https://cointelegraph.com/news/over-62m-lost-address-poisoning-since-december-scam-sniffer

It is always good we do not copy the address we are sending to from the wallet that was used to receive a coin.

It is reported that Ethereum Fusaka upgrade makes address poisoning cheaper.

[EarnOnVictor]

You can read it on the news yourself: https://cointelegraph.com/news/over-62m-lost-address-poisoning-since-december-scam-sniffer

It is always good we do not copy the address we are sending to from the wallet that was used to receive a coin.

I don't know why the world is not listening to advice, or perhaps they do not pay attention, or what?

Copying and pasting crypto addresses is for a tiny value that will not be an issue. For someone like me, I could still do the copying and pasting of $500. But, my brother, any money reaching $1,000 or thereabout, I must check and double-check (if not triple-check) before I click send. That is the only solution to this menace.

How much more millions of dollars worth? I guess those guys are crazy and lazy at the same time.

[_act_]

I don't know why the world is not listening to advice, or perhaps they do not pay attention, or what?

Copying and pasting crypto addresses is for a tiny value that will not be an issue. For someone like me, I could still do the copying and pasting of $500. But, my brother, any money reaching $1,000 or thereabout, I must check and double-check (if not triple-check) before I click send. That is the only solution to this menace.

If I want to send $1 to anyone, I will make sure I still go through the address very well before sending. But this is not the problem, it is where the victim copied the address from is the problem.

How much more millions of dollars worth? I guess those guys are crazy and lazy at the same time.

I do not think they are lazy, but they do not have the important information in avoiding this scam is the reason. They are only tricked, not knowing the address belongs to scammers and not them.

[Mpamaegbu]

It is always good we do not copy the address we are sending to from the wallet that was used to receive a coin.

This particular sentence isn't clear. Are you suggesting that receiving wallet should be different from sending wallet? You forgot that we can save an address we've sent to before on the same wallet?

Anyway, my take home in all these is what I've always done and that's never to paste copied addresses from the clipboard. I've read about victims who said their addresses changed when they pasted straight from clipboards. Though I've not been a victim, I tend to scrutinize my addresses when I'm sending out; especially if it's the first time to that address.

[Charles-Tim]

This particular sentence isn't clear. Are you suggesting that receiving wallet should be different from sending wallet? You forgot that we can save an address we've sent to before on the same wallet?

Anyway, my take home in all these is what I've always done and that's never to paste copied addresses from the clipboard. I've read about victims who said their addresses changed when they pasted straight from clipboards. Though I've not been a victim, I tend to scrutinize my addresses when I'm sending out; especially if it's the first time to that address.

Address poisoning is not about clipboard malware, they are completely different. You can make use of search engine to know what address poisoning is.

Let me explain it maybe you will understand
After you send let us assume ethereum from your exchange to your noncustodial wallet, this can make you think that the address of the exchanges is on your wallet deposit history. Scammers has similar addresses which they will use to flood you will coins not up to $0.001, thinking that you will mistakenly copy the scammers address when you want to deposit back to your exchange address. Only what is important is that you should go to the exchange and copy the address. Also if you want to receive the coin on another wallet, go to the another wallet to copy the address. No need to copy the address from your transaction history.

Yes, it is also very important to avoid clipboard malware.

[Findingnemo]

Stop reuisng the addresses, I guess it should also applies for altcoins too, not sure how much effective it when it comes to protecting our privacy but I am sure it can save people from address poisioning too, and always use QR scanner instead of copy/paste and always triple check the characters to make sure it is not affected with clipboard hijacker too.

[Mpamaegbu]

~

Let me explain it maybe you will understand

Sorry, but of course I wasn't confused about it the first time. I merely added a similar perspective to the whole thing because I know a lot of users also have fallen victims to the clipboard thing.

On the address poisoning thing, I asked for clarification in my first comment as it was suggestive in the OP not to use same wallet. That question wasn't answered. Perhaps, you may want to respond to that now?

[Ruttoshi]

It is always good we do not copy the address we are sending to from the wallet that was used to receive a coin.

This particular sentence isn't clear. Are you suggesting that receiving wallet should be different from sending wallet? You forgot that we can save an address we've sent to before on the same wallet?

You can use the same wallet to recieve and send but the problem lies when you directly copy an address from your wallet that has sent coins to you before, it's not safe even though, it's was in your wallet because you can be affected with address poisoning. Best is to always copy the address you are sending to directly from original wallet that owns the address or from the exchange and not from where it's stored in your wallet.

I think if you save an address that you have already sent to before in your wallet, you can still fall for the trap of address poisoning which is why you should always copy from the original address source and not saved address or from the one that you have sent to before. Rechecking the wallet address over and over again can prevent you from this.

[Yamane_Keto]

It is reported that Ethereum Fusaka upgrade makes address poisoning cheaper.

Low or high transaction costs do not affect the likelihood of address poisoning. Scammers target active wallets that perform numerous transactions in a short period and then send dust to them, hoping the scam will succeed. Wallets and explorers can reduce the risk of address poisoning by using tools such as wallet activity analysis, whitelists, or dust transaction blocking.

[Churchillvv]

Reading this now makes me think about a news I read in the past days that a young mathematician who is good at cryptography has been on the run for some time now because he has single handedly poisoned addresses and stolen millions of crypto and he was wanted but for the crime but for his knowledge. However this is to say that the way we have more people who can poison addresses more and even hack better every day so the best way to kill their strategy is by avoiding the reuse of addresses.

[crwth]

I know that in modern wallets like MetaMask and Phantom, flag addresses that might be dust-attack / poisoning attacks. It doesn't eliminate the risk, but companies are taking steps to reduce it.
^{(It's all about how the user takes care of their wallet as well.)}

Another point to add is that it's not just the ETH main chain, but all EVM chains. This is why it's important to take care of your wallet and who you send it to. Whitelisting can also be done in some wallets.

My main practice is to send a small amount first, to make sure it arrives.

[sana54210]

Seriously, I never understood not double checking or even triple checking when you are making a transfer. I check not just the start of the address or the end of the address, but I literally check the whole thing. In fact, so much so that, I use the same address for most Tron transactions and yet I still check it after having used the same thing for nearly five years now, still check it every single time.

There is really no reason to just not double check. My cold wallet bitcoin address has been the same one since I moved to segwit and I have memorized it already. And among all of those, just check where you are sending too, make sure it's exactly the same, why be careless with your money, and with this much money, it's a shame.

[hero_the_bossman]

there will always be peeps falling for that cheap tactic.

it's a human factor.. our job is to watch out for ourselves to not to be mentioned in such news at all.

[NurseHub]

My main practice is to send a small amount first, to make sure it arrives.

some targeted victims still fails victim of address poisoning even after sending a small amount to the same address,you can check the Google for some victims who have been drained through same process but however it is majorly because they are being targeted but however it's a good practice for people who are more or less normal people with no personal attacks focused on them. but I think not refusing address is my reference.

[FinneysTrueVision]

Address poisoning isn’t nearly as common in Bitcoin as it is on Ethereum and the countless other copycat chains. Address reuse is a major weakness in account based blockchains. This leads people to copy addresses from block explorers or their transaction history because they look so similar to the addresses they have been using for a long time. I used to do this too sometimes before I knew it was a bad practice. Sometimes when the address you want to send funds to is on a wallet on another device, it just seems easier to go on etherscan and look for addresses you’ve interacted with that look familiar.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

It doesn't take so much time to copy an address from the original source anytime we want to send our coins to the address, so we should learn from the losses of these two victims. If it were when I didn't know about these type of scam, when ever i want to send some coins to an address I have sent funds to before, I normally copy the address from my wallet history but after reading about the first case of address poisoning, I stopped doing that. Prevention is better than cure.

[5W-KILO]

You can read it on the news yourself: https://cointelegraph.com/news/over-62m-lost-address-poisoning-since-december-scam-sniffer

It is always good we do not copy the address we are sending to from the wallet that was used to receive a coin.

I don't know why the world is not listening to advice, or perhaps they do not pay attention, or what?

Copying and pasting crypto addresses is for a tiny value that will not be an issue. For someone like me, I could still do the copying and pasting of $500. But, my brother, any money reaching $1,000 or thereabout, I must check and double-check (if not triple-check) before I click send. That is the only solution to this menace.

How much more millions of dollars worth? I guess those guys are crazy and lazy at the same time.

You have a point, but here is mine too

How the hell can a man worth 50 million in dollars and still use crypto wallets where you can copy paste? Why not airgapped device where you can easily use QR code to avoid pasting wrong address or address poisoning?

This person even choose to store the whole amount in a single address, I can't say that I pity this person, big amount of money doesn't always mean that someone is smart.

[Odusko]

It doesn't take so much time to copy an address from the original source anytime we want to send our coins to the address, so we should learn from the losses of these two victims. If it were when I didn't know about these type of scam, when ever i want to send some coins to an address I have sent funds to before, I normally copy the address from my wallet history but after reading about the first case of address poisoning, I stopped doing that. Prevention is better than cure.

This type of phishing act have been around for quite a long time now, but most cryptocurrency users that are new to the market are not aware of that, and will want to keep a clipboard copy of their wallet address for easy transactions, but unknown to them that we have what we call clipboard compromise where the hackers can access and replace your copied address replacing it with a lookalike address tricking you to send your coins to them unknownly.

[o48o]

I don't know why the world is not listening to advice, or perhaps they do not pay attention, or what?

Copying and pasting crypto addresses is for a tiny value that will not be an issue. For someone like me, I could still do the copying and pasting of $500. But, my brother, any money reaching $1,000 or thereabout, I must check and double-check (if not triple-check) before I click send. That is the only solution to this menace.

How much more millions of dollars worth? I guess those guys are crazy and lazy at the same time.

This is exactly why address poisoning is never going away. Most of the time it doesn't pay off, but that "investment" is peanuts to one big score.

From what i have seen, certain type of rich people in this space who haven't been hacked or scammed before, they become over confident of their own skills. So they might be prawn to mistakes. Especially if you add sleep deprivation in this mix (which is probably likely if you are watching markets all the time).

I vaguely remember years ago one crypto-rich twitter influencer dissing others about being suckers for being hacked. He was being arrogant, rude and cocky. It took maybe few days before he got completely hacked, drained and humiliated.

I never got to that level of confidence, as while my bags grew, my paranoia grew with them. Also i got scammed few times like most of us here. That doesn't really grow confidence, just the general distrust against everyone.

[TastyChillySauce00]

It is always good we do not copy the address we are sending to from the wallet that was used to receive a coin.

It is reported that Ethereum Fusaka upgrade makes address poisoning cheaper.

It's always best practice to copy address straight from the source. I always rechecked the address hashes twice sometime the entire address if i'm sending big amount of money since the nature of crypto is irreversible. Clipboard can also be manipulated therefore always beware.

I'm also seeing the address poisoning attack to be more rampant now, some even send real USDC instead of shitcoin probably because these stories. It's not rare to randomly receive $0.1 - $0.5 USDC from these poisoning address.