A phisher operating under the pseudonym “Monkey Drainer” has stolen 700 Ethereum (ETH) tokens worth approximately $1.05 million over the past 24 hours, according to a Twitter thread on-chain detective “ZachXBT” .
1/ ~700 ETH ($1 million) was stolen in the last 24 hours by a phishing scammer known as Monkey Drainer.
They recently surpassed 7300 transactions from their drain wallet after being around for just a few months. pic.twitter.com/6vAYBiqCxQ
—ZachXBT (@zachxbt) October 25, 2022
In phishing scams, malicious individuals create fake and malicious websites to access wallet keys and login credentials under the guise of legitimate crypto businesses.
The Monkey Drainer scam wallet has been around for months and has completed over 7,300 transactions, detectives say.
According to ZachXBT, nearly 35% of the previous day’s loot was stolen from the two victims, resulting in a combined loss of approximately $370,000 worth of assets. The largest victim held her $6.2 million worth of cryptocurrency, but only lost $220,000 worth of assets, and other transaction requests were denied.
Scammers stole multiple non-fungible tokens (NFTs), including 1 Bored Ape Yacht Club, 1 Clone X, and $36000 worth of USD Coins (USDC) from the second largest victim .
According to ZachXBT’s estimates, Monkey Drainer has tricked several people over the past few weeks, bringing the total amount of rogues to around $3.5 million.
Earlier this week, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, said the exchange would compensate phishing victims who lost assets worth a total of $6 million. However, he cautioned that this was a one-time exception, noting that the industry must collectively fight phishing.
Phishing is one of the most popular exploits in the crypto sector.Phishing attacks increased 170% in Q2 2022 compared to Q1, according to Q2 Web3 security report By blockchain security company Certik.
