Crypto whale loses over $32 million in apparent phishing attack

A crypto whale appears to have lost over $32 million worth of tokens after signing a malicious transaction, blockchain security service ScamSniffer first noted in a post on X. 

The loss came in the form of wrapped ether tokens from the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Spark. The 12,083 spWETH tokens drained from the wallet are worth about $32.4 million at current value. 

The malicious transaction was powered by the Inferno Drainer scam-as-a-service, according to blockchain intelligence firm Arkham . The Inferno Drainer, which targets users with spoofed versions of popular DeFi applications in an attempt to trick those users into signing over control of their wallets, has stolen over $215 million from over 200,000 victims across its lifetime, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard built by ScamSniffer. 

Inferno's operators reportedly take a 20% commission on stolen tokens . Though the service was originally shut down by its developers in November 2023, it made a return in May of this year, calling the service "better than ever" with "new staff, new ways to work, new support, and new features." The scam service claims to support 28 different blockchains and hundreds of different DeFi apps. 

The identity of the phished individual has yet to be confirmed; however, blockchain sleuth ZachXBT spotted large transactions connecting the wallet with a whale known as CZSamSun (not to be confused with X user @samczsun, a researcher at VC firm Paradigm). 

A blockchain message sent from the victim's wallet purportedly offered a 20% reward for the return of the funds, though a reply has yet to appear from the alleged scammer. 

"To avoid being phished, please do not click on any unknown links and do not sign any unknown signatures. Always double-check when signing signatures," analytics firm LookOnChain posted on X .