Three Crypto Attacks that must be known to a Crypto User
“The immediate rise of the cryptocurrency trading has led to an increased buying and selling of the cryptocurrencies. With the sudden hype and lack of knowledge people are jumping into the unknown, unaware of the dangers lurking beneath”.
The Crypto Hype
The crypto industry has reached a point where there is no stopping it and with its huge potential, comes the hoards of investors that are dumping all their money into the gold rush that the crypto industry promises it to be. With a parabolic rise in the crypto investors and the little knowledge about the technology they have, they are entering into a gray area where the scammers and attackers are waiting for them to rob them of their hard earned money. Thus, there is a need to understand a few attacks that can be used to exploit the blockchain on which these currencies are built and function.
Three Common Attacks to Remember
Crypto Jacking
Being the most common crypto attack, it can be seen in our daily lives, where the attacker installs crypto mining scripts on a victim’s computer to mine the cryptocurrency through the computational and energy resources of the victim. The attacker uses emails and website embedded scripts which when clicked by the users downloads the mining application on the system and runs in the background and sends the mined coins to the attacker’s wallet. If a sudden decrease in the system’s performance or overheating is noticed without running any heavy application, you can be a potential victim of crypto jacking. To keep safe, never open any links or websites that are not trusted.
Crypto Clipping
It is quite similar to crypto jacking attack, but the only difference is that it acts as a malware that can steal the assets on the victims crypto wallet by replacing the wallet address of the recipient to the wallet address of the attacker during a transaction. If the victim tries to send cryptocurrency to someone through his wallet, the copied wallet address of the recipient is replaced with the attacker’s address and the funds intended to be transferred to someone else ends up in the wallet of the attacker. These types of applications are embedded into third party software and the users must avoid downloading them and must always check the wallet address after copying and pasting them during crypto transactions.
Crypto Dusting
Relatively a new attack in the crypto industry and the most sophisticated one. The attackers send untraceable amounts of crypto called crypto dust to thousands and even hundreds and thousands of wallets to de-anonymize or unmask the identity of the wallet holder such as a big whale holding a huge amount of crypto in his wallet. Once the attack is complete and the identity of the owner is known, sophisticated phishing or extortion attacks are directed towards the person that can lead to loss of money, privacy and even life. To avoid such attacks hierarchical-deterministic wallets must be used that creates a new wallet every time you transact, making you untraceable.
Takeaways
- Crypto investing must be done with caution and after understanding the attacks and their preventions.
- Investors must never download third party applications and links from the unknown sources.
Disclaimer: The article is meant for the educational purpose only and in no way it should be considered as financial advice. Own research on the topic is advisable.
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