Scammers make victims build the drainers that empty their own wallets

[Pmalek]

Scammers have found a way to drain crypto wallets by tricking them into building the tool that ends up stealing from them. This particular case involves stealing Ethereum, but it doesn't matter which asset was stolen or how much of it. It could have also been targeting bitcoin or been created to do a different type of damage to a victim's system.

I am sharing this to show how dangerous it is to run code you don't understand and how trusting unknown people on the internet can be dangerous, especially those who claim they want to help you make money.


Back to the drainer.

This case involves a scammer making YouTube tutorials, showing people how to build crypto trading bots with Claude. They provide the viewers with the code they need to use and explain what to do. The scammers explain how to fund the wallet of the "trading bot." The unsuspecting victims deploy a smart contract themselves, on their own computer, and approve transactions without knowing it. While it's true that Bitcoin's smart contract capabilities are much more limited than Ethereum's, a different type of attack could also trick bitcoin holders and make them lose money or infect their systems.

What the victims didn't know is that the "trading bot" isn't a bot at all. It was created to empty your wallet of all ETH and send it to a scammer. It's reported that over 200 wallets were drained in this way and over $500,000 was stolen.


The lesson here is: don't copy and run unknown code. Don't open unknown files. Don't trust people you don't know who want to help you get rich. They might be looking for a way to get rich off of you. Keep both eyes open at all times.

The sad part of this story is that the victims made and deployed the drainers that stole money from themselves.


Source:
https://x.com/wyckoffweb/status/2101671671727898870

[hmbdofficial]

This is a good reminder that not every scam requires the victim to download a fake wallet or click a suspicious link. Sometimes this scammer can convince the victim to build or run malicious tools themselves.

The most important takeaway for me here will be, never to blindly copy and run code from someone on the internet, especially when money or private keys are involved.
AI tool can also generate code, but that doesn’t mean the code is automatically safe. If you don't understand what the code is doing, you should not run it with access to your funds or computer.

The fact that the victims deployed the drainer themselves makes this particular case even more dangerous. Scammers can use trust, tutorials and promises to make money as part of the attack. We need to verify code and understand what we are approving before giving any program access to our funds.

[Big Dirams]

If I’m not mistaken, the victim by themselves were convinced and used to drain their own wallets just over trusting some one on the net. Scammers are making progress and advancing to be honest. No matter what we are doing, researching through what we are into is very necessary and it should always be our priority especially when it from strangers. If the victim could have made a research on that code then a lot of them would have not be a victim but the ignorance and trust ends them in an abyss. Their faith were on the hand of a total stranger, that disappointing.

The internet is filled with scumbags and folks that are deceiving, people keep neglecting that influencers can’t take advantage of them, trick them and do anything that would tarnish their reputation but those are just myth. Just because some one is a public figure we just blindly trust them and our expectations from them are always about the positive impression when we are in the 21st century.

[Merit.s]

O my Gawd, what a suicide mission you embarked on your own. The problem with majority of people that fall for these scammers are looking for various means to get rich quick and that's why they don't think twice before doing what they're being told by the scammers. Imagine trying to make money from trading and you don't want to learn it manually.

Professional traders cannot boldly say they're making profit, why will these people believe that they can use a bot to make profit. I don't even believe in those who give trading signals neither, do I love copy trading.

[Emjay24]

O my Gawd, what a suicide mission you embarked on your own. The problem with majority of people that fall for these scammers are looking for various means to get rich quick and that's why they don't think twice before doing what they're being told by the scammers. Imagine trying to make money from trading and you don't want to learn it manually.

Professional traders cannot boldly say they're making profit, why will these people believe that they can use a bot to make profit. I don't even believe in those who give trading signals neither, do I love copy trading.

People would never learn, they are just careless. Why approve transaction with unverified smart contract code from your main wallet?

Scammers are leveraging on free tutorials recently. I attended a tutorial recently from Iman Gandzhi verified youtube channel and we had a whatssap group as well, he demonstrated to have developed a specialized AI that can help identify best selling products, create it automatically and ship it to sites for users to start making money immediately. Midway into the program, he demanded over a thousand dollars for the opportunity, 2 days later the whatssap group was suspended. These guys are getting smarter, the best way to stay safe is never meddling the device or wallet that serves as your main holding with any tutorial or job opportunities from strangers.

[Fiatless]

The lesson here is: don't copy and run unknown code. Don't open unknown files. Don't trust people you don't know who want to help you get rich. They might be looking for a way to get rich off of you. Keep both eyes open at all times.

The sad part of this story is that the victims made and deployed the drainers that stole money from themselves.
Source:
https://x.com/wyckoffweb/status/2101671671727898870

A new day, new strategies. It's like building a bomb that is designed to kill you.

I have never heard of this scamming strategy.  YouTube is filled with many do-it-yourself videos that are unverified. If you are not knowledgeable about a code, it would be better to buy or subscribe to it from a reputable organisation instead of risking your money. I guess these victims were trying to save the cost. I believe some companies might be offering these thesame services for a fee.

Greed might have also contributed to the loss of funds. I have seen some videos claiming that their trading bots guarantee high returns.

Scammers are heartless. They were still asking victims to deposit more money to fix the bot.

Some victims even got an error after getting drained telling them to deposit another 50% to fix the bot.

[slaman29]

Ah yes, people telling themselves that they are building code without understanding what it actually is or does.

I don't code at all, never good technically but even when I got help building html websites in the past, everything was aided with tutorials I still wanted to understand what it was I was told.

Worse case scenario, at least it should be open source and peer reviewed etc. So I don't understand it but good people do.

Brilliant idea honestly.

[RGBTC]

Well, we’ve reached a trend where AI and automation bots are seen as an incredible combination for making money quickly. Problems arise, however, if one lacks the actual ideas and foundational knowledge to build something from scratch. Now I understand why this forum strictly prohibits plagiarism.

This reminds me of a X's report I came across recently, where the author couldn't identify the attack vector because no specific device or software had been linked to it yet.

[m2017]

Scammers have found a way to drain crypto wallets by tricking them into building the tool that ends up stealing from them. This particular case involves stealing Ethereum, but it doesn't matter which asset was stolen or how much of it. It could have also been targeting bitcoin or been created to do a different type of damage to a victim's system.

"Necessity is the mother of invention."

An attacker is always more interested in the victim's wallet than the victim themselves is. That is why victims let their guard down.

I am sharing this to show how dangerous it is to run code you don't understand and how trusting unknown people on the internet can be dangerous, especially those who claim they want to help you make money.

Amidst the "programming boom", everyone wants to feel like a programmer - especially given how easily accessible AI is.

It’s risky to trust strangers - especially those "helping" make money.

Back to the drainer.

This case involves a scammer making YouTube tutorials, showing people how to build crypto trading bots with Claude. They provide the viewers with the code they need to use and explain what to do. The scammers explain how to fund the wallet of the "trading bot." The unsuspecting victims deploy a smart contract themselves, on their own computer, and approve transactions without knowing it. While it's true that Bitcoin's smart contract capabilities are much more limited than Ethereum's, a different type of attack could also trick bitcoin holders and make them lose money or infect their systems.

When I read the details of this story, I found the simplicity and ingenuity of the scam (on one hand) rather amusing. After all, why should a scammers complicate the task by "breaking into" a victim's system when they can simply nudge the victim into creating the malicious program themselves? From a technical standpoint, it is quite inventive. I hope my admiration for the execution isn't mistaken for approval of the perpetrator's actions; it is, after all, a regrettable incident that could have affected almost anyone.

What the victims didn't know is that the "trading bot" isn't a bot at all. It was created to empty your wallet of all ETH and send it to a scammer. It's reported that over 200 wallets were drained in this way and over $500,000 was stolen.

During a gold BTC-rush, the best way to make money is by selling shovels. Now, fake "shovels" are being sold.

The lesson here is: don't copy and run unknown code. Don't open unknown files. Don't trust people you don't know who want to help you get rich. They might be looking for a way to get rich off of you. Keep both eyes open at all times.

It seems the world is sliding into an era of paranoia. Now, anything related to currencies is at risk of "attack" by malicious actors - even "custom-written code" can be turned against the user themselves.

In reality, nothing has changed. The victims simply wanted to make easy money by creating a trading bot that would earn them millions. The scammers brilliantly exploited the victim's greed. They shouldn't have sought an easy path to riches.

The sad part of this story is that the victims made and deployed the drainers that stole money from themselves.

So, who is ultimately to blame? The users themselves for their "blind trust"? What stopped them from checking the code in other AI tools and figuring out its (hidden) purpose?

Source:
https://x.com/wyckoffweb/status/2101671671727898870

An interesting detail: "Some victims even got an error after getting drained telling them to deposit another 50% to fix the bot." -Like I said, this scam is brilliant. They also conned people out of money for fixing the bot.

[Itz-prisigold]

I feel another bad aspect of this is that these scammers can make a scam appear very legit so that the victim will have no reason to be suspicious of what he or she is doing.  When following a tutorial video online and you're basically doing everything they say step by step, at a stage you might genuinely think that you are just learning something technical and not realize that just a click on something you don't actually know might be giving the attacker access to your money.

Just because the person seems trustworthy and the tutorial video has thousands of views does not guarantee that everything might be okay. For someone like me that has a trust issues if I'm doing something that money is involve, I always take some minutes to verify things properly because that can actually save someone from a lot of future damage.

[boyptc]

The lesson here is: don't copy and run unknown code. Don't open unknown files. Don't trust people you don't know who want to help you get rich. They might be looking for a way to get rich off of you. Keep both eyes open at all times.

Aside from this lesson.

If these bot creators are profitable and making money, they're not going to share it publicly. And they are going to make riches silently without even the need to interact to anybody.

Sad to say that they're good in convincing gullible victims and that's why they're eager to post it on youtube. I've searched with a keyword of "build ai bot for trading" and there's a bunch of these content creators with thousands of followers.

I believe some who are vouching them in the comment section are also themselves.

[aoluain]

Another example of scammers taking advantage of people who are willing to do almost
anything in order to try and make 'money'. if its on youtube shure it must be legitimate! - not

Downloading apps, programs and code might seem normal to everyone at this day and
age and thats what these scammers are building on.

We have to think twice, especially those of us who dont really understand code, thats
reason enough to be skeptical.

[GeorgeJohn]

What the victims didn't know is that the "trading bot" isn't a bot at all. It was created to empty your wallet of all ETH and send it to a scammer. It's reported that over 200 wallets were drained in this way and over $500,000 was stolen.

That is why we need to be careful in anything we do..especially anything that has to do with crypto investment..This is a high rate of scam, That redirect whatever someone have to their own wallet....That means they was a link sent to the victim which the victim clicked that redirects it funds in the wallet to the scam bot wallet...

The lesson here is: don't copy and run unknown code. Don't open unknown files. Don't trust people you don't know who want to help you get rich. They might be looking for a way to get rich off of you. Keep both eyes open at all times.

Why people always become victim of such kinds of things...is that, they want to make an instant profit without consultation or research...Before if anyone convince you to invest in what you don't know, ensure you  have at least make a research to know the advantages and disadvantages of what you wants to embark on...it's greediness and over excitement that lure some people to be a victims...Nobody should neglect researching before embarking on investment, it's also one of the moral lesson of this thread...

[coinlary]

This is a new technique, it's less suspicious than just asking people to download and run a drainer. It's easy to convince people that it's safe by making them build it themselves.

Humans are greedy, they always lose their thinking senses whenever they hear about something like a tool, app, site and so on that can easily make them rich with just a tiny effort . These scammers are just making use of human greed.

[retreat]

This is why it's so important to be careful with anything on the internet. Even if someone says a tutorial works, you still need to be careful with everything you do, especially when it involves your assets. That's why it's always recommended that when trying something, you don't connect it to your main wallet, just test it with a separate wallet. At least if something goes wrong, it won't drain your wallet. Or even better, just stay away from things you don't understand. Nowadays, because the coding vibe has become easier, people can generate or modify code without fully understanding how it works, even though that can become a problem when they create something but don't understand what the code actually does.

[MisFoxie]

The problem here is not just about using unknown code. Most of the time we trust YouTube influencers a lot because they provide a lot of useful information so we think of them like a teacher that why when they provide a service we think they will not provide anything bad in it, just like what happened in this case.

That person trusted influencer and used their service and the consequence in the end was very bad. I thought maybe they made some profit in the beginning which is why more people joined it but after hearing the person’s statement it seems that it doesn’t do any trading at all. It directly sends the funds to the scammers address.

Why do people trust scammers like these? If huge profits can be made through a trading bot then why would they share it? They could use it themselves and make a lot of profit.

[5W-KILO]

No one will help you make money for free, it will be stupid of you to believe a stranger who PM you first and tell you that they want to help you, in today's world id run for my life if anyone decides to help me make money, at the cost of what exactly?

The first habit that people needs to defeat is their own greed, wipe this clean off your mind completely and you will never fall into the trap of strangers ever again.

You are the only person that can help yourself, even your families who have the capacity might turned a blind eye, always have full confidence in yourself and find your own way, no stranger is Jesus, its only He that can help a total stranger.

[oll]

The sad part of this story is that the victims made and deployed the drainers that stole money from themselves.
Source:
https://x.com/wyckoffweb/status/2101671671727898870

Currently, there are indeed a lot of examples of technical hacks, as well as examples of hacks that aren’t technical in nature - specifically, those involving social engineering. There’s a huge hype around artificial intelligence right now, and it’s only growing; it feels like soon everyone - housewives, children, and, of course, scammers - will know about it.
These guys absolutely understand this perfectly well and are using it to make quick money by exploiting the greed of less‑than‑agile people. And the most ironic thing is that the perpetrator doesn’t even have to do anything - he just records such a malicious video once (which, for some reason, YouTube doesn’t delete), and after that, the victim ends up disabling the protection with their own hands.

[ryzaadit]

Remind me of AI that shares the fake link. I think people should realize now that AI already includes a disclaimer. Take an example for ChatGPT:
[1] https://help.openai.com/id-id/articles/9237897-searching-the-web-with-chatgpt
The source used for your answer could be wrong, misleading, or expired. You as user still need to make some DD, for the answer is being generated by AI.


By the way, scammers are trying to reach AI right now. They even learned about GEO (Generative Engine Optimization): https://github.com/OffcierCia/Generative-Engine-Optimization once they can masterpiece these and their content passed AI. Their scam method will more success comparing to SEO or Ads scam. So, always carefull with AI too since the resource they provided could be wrong, misleading, or expired..

[Taskford]

Scammers have found a way to drain crypto wallets by tricking them into building the tool that ends up stealing from them. This particular case involves stealing Ethereum, but it doesn't matter which asset was stolen or how much of it. It could have also been targeting bitcoin or been created to do a different type of damage to a victim's system.

I am sharing this to show how dangerous it is to run code you don't understand and how trusting unknown people on the internet can be dangerous, especially those who claim they want to help you make money.


Back to the drainer.

This case involves a scammer making YouTube tutorials, showing people how to build crypto trading bots with Claude. They provide the viewers with the code they need to use and explain what to do. The scammers explain how to fund the wallet of the "trading bot." The unsuspecting victims deploy a smart contract themselves, on their own computer, and approve transactions without knowing it. While it's true that Bitcoin's smart contract capabilities are much more limited than Ethereum's, a different type of attack could also trick bitcoin holders and make them lose money or infect their systems.

What the victims didn't know is that the "trading bot" isn't a bot at all. It was created to empty your wallet of all ETH and send it to a scammer. It's reported that over 200 wallets were drained in this way and over $500,000 was stolen.


The lesson here is: don't copy and run unknown code. Don't open unknown files. Don't trust people you don't know who want to help you get rich. They might be looking for a way to get rich off of you. Keep both eyes open at all times.

The sad part of this story is that the victims made and deployed the drainers that stole money from themselves.


Source:
https://x.com/wyckoffweb/status/2101671671727898870

I read similar article released by Sentinel Labs last year.

SentinelLABS has identified widespread and ongoing cryptocurrency scams in which actors advertise a crypto trading bot that conceals a smart contract designed to steal the victim’s funds. The scams are marketed through YouTube videos which explain the purported nature of the crypto trading bot and explain how to deploy a smart contract on the Remix Solidity Compiler platform, a web-based integrated development environment (IDE) for Web3 projects. The video descriptions share a link to an external site that hosts the weaponized smart contract code.

So meaning those bad actors still successful using that scheme. To drain the wallets of their victims. Read their article here https://www.sentinelone.com/labs/smart-contract-scams-ethereum-drainers-pose-as-trading-bots-to-steal-crypto

Also yeah its really sad that many people fall from this schemes. This remind us again that we should not trust people, especially if they are sending software or anything unknown to us. So we can avoid same wallet draining or hacking issues.