MetaMask users targeted by an address poisoning campaign

MetaMask cryptocurrency wallet users should be careful of a newly discovered campaign that could deceive them and cause them to lose funds. Based on reports, threat actors have fooled targeted victims through an address-poisoning scam campaign that siphons cryptocurrency.

The campaign tricks a user into sending funds to an attacker-controlled account instead of the intended recipient.

The scam exploits users who often trust their recent transactions to find the recipient for executing new transactions. Hence, the attackers take advantage of these tendencies by adding fake transactions to a target’s transaction history.

Researchers explained that when a MetaMask user sends or receives a fund, it will be displayed as a record in the wallet’s transaction list. Clicking on the “more details” button will display the token, sent or received amount, and a short form of the third party’s location.

While the sender and receiver wallet addresses appear similar in short form, they could still differ. Instead, they might confuse users into making subsequent transactions to the scammer’s address.

 

Attackers could pinpoint potential MetaMask users by monitoring recent transactions on the blockchain.

 

The hackers could use the vanity address created to develop an address like the recent transaction list of the targeted MetaMask user.

They will then transfer a small amount of crypt to the sender’s look-alike address, controlled by the attacker. This method allows the scammer to display their transactions to the targeted user’s wallet history.

The displayed address is identical to a user’s previous transaction. It seems to be from a valid person known to the victim because MetaMask shortens the lessons in the history of transactions.

Lastly, the adversary will have to bets on the user to send crypto funds to their forged address in the wallet history and profit from their campaign.

Experts recommend that MetaMask should employ the built-in Address Book Feature to save known and valid crypto addresses for people or services they frequently make transactions with. Furthermore, cryptocurrency wallet providers could also add functionality that displays full details of recent transactions to avoid user errors and mitigate similar attacks soon.