Key Points
- An unidentified individual lost over $674,000 in USDC due to a phishing scam.
- The incident was reported by blockchain security platform, PeckShield, and involved multiple transactions of various digital assets.
A phishing scam has resulted in a considerable loss of over $674,000 in USDC for an unknown market participant. The increasing frequency of such deceptive schemes has raised concerns.
PeckShield, a blockchain security platform, reported this incident. The source of this information was on-chain data from the Ethereum blockchain explorer, Etherscan.
Details of the Scam
The scammers extracted 674,962 USDC from the victim’s wallets, transferring this amount to two different addresses. One untagged wallet received 607,527 USDC, while the remaining 67,435 USDC went to a wallet recognized as a phishing address.
The untagged wallet moved the received USDC to Ox, a protocol based on blockchain that facilitates peer-to-peer exchange of digital assets. The criminals then exchanged the USDC for 160.32 Ethereum (ETH) tokens, transferring 159 ETH to a Zerion wallet.
Continued Scam Activity
On-chain data indicates that the scammers have been continuously draining the victim’s address since March 1. They have been regularly using smart contract functions to transfer assets to addresses under their control.
The initial transactions involved 35.44 AstraAI (ASTRA) tokens, worth $98.18. Similar activities involving other assets followed, with over 400 such transactions carried out in the past five days.
While the transfer of $647,000 was the largest, it wasn’t the last. The victim’s address continued to move assets to the phishing wallet, including 691,333 NOIA Token (NOIA) valued at $163,378, shortly after the $647,000 transaction.
The victim, who currently has a balance of over $59,000, must revoke any permissions given to the scammers to stop the continuous diversion of funds. The crypto community has noticed an increase in phishing scams as malicious actors develop more sophisticated tools to target unsuspecting investors.
These scams often use hacked social media accounts of reputable individuals and fake emails. In one case, victims lost $440,000 in an airdrop scam when the fraudsters used a compromised MicroStrategy X account to promote the scam.
Scam Sniffer, an on-chain security resource, revealed on Jan. 1 that the growing number of phishing scams last year led to losses of over $300 million, affecting up to 320,000 users.
