Zero Transfer scammer steals $20M USDT, gets blacklisted by Tether

A scammer utilizing zero transportation phishing attack managed to bargain $20 cardinal worthy of USDT stablecoin connected Aug. 1, earlier getting blacklisted by the stablecoin issuer Tether.

According to an update from on-chain analytic steadfast Peckshield, A zero transportation scammer grabbed 20 million USDT from the unfortunate code 0x4071...9Cbc. The intended code that the unfortunate planned to nonstop wealth to was 0xa7B4BAC8f0f9692e56750aEFB5f6cB5516E90570, however, it was sent to a phishing Address: 0xa7Bf48749D2E4aA29e3209879956b9bAa9E90570.

The zero transportation phishing scam. Source: Etherscan

The victim's wallet code archetypal received 10 cardinal USD from a Binance account. The unfortunate past sent it to different code earlier the scammer jumped in. The scammer past sent a fake Zero USDT token transportation retired from the victim’s relationship to the scammer's phishing address. A fewer hours aboriginal the unfortunate sent 20 cardinal existent USDT to the scammer reasoning they are transferring to a known address.

The wallet was instantly frozen by the USDT issuer Tether raising eyebrows astatine the speedy quality of the action.

Curious who this would beryllium if it was blacklisted wrong ~1 hr

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) August 1, 2023

The scam proposers due to the fact that users mostly cheque the archetypal oregon past 5 digits of a wallet code and not the full address, making them nonstop the assets to the phishing address. The unfortunate is tricked into sending a transaction for zero tokens from their wallet to an code that resembles 1 to which they person already sent tokens successful the past.

How zero transportation scam works. Source: Coinbase

For instance, if the unfortunate sent 100 coins to an code for an speech deposit, the attacker mightiness nonstop 0 coins from the victim's wallet to an code that appears to beryllium akin but is really controlled by the attacker. Upon viewing this transaction successful their transaction history, the unfortunate mightiness presume that the code displayed is the due deposit address. They mightiness truthful nonstop their coins directly.

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Zero transportation phishing scams person go rather salient successful the crypto ecosystem implicit the past twelvemonth with aggregate instances of specified scams coming to light. The archetypal lawsuit of the zero transportation occurred successful December past twelvemonth and has resulted successful implicit $40 cardinal successful losses to specified attacks.

Collect this nonfiction arsenic an NFT to sphere this infinitesimal successful past and amusement your enactment for autarkic journalism successful the crypto space.

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