Address Poisoning Attacks: How to Protect Your Cryptocurrency Transactions

Binance Blog published a new article, revealing insights into a recent trend of address poisoning attacks within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. These attacks exploit the common habit of users copying addresses from transaction histories and the UI limitation of shortened addresses, posing a significant threat to users by tricking them into sending funds to malicious or incorrect addresses. Criminals conducting address poisoning attacks use vanity address generators to create addresses that mimic the first and last few characters of victims’ frequent contacts. They then employ fake tokens, zero-value transfers, or small real amounts to bypass wallet filters and pollute transaction histories. This method capitalizes on the fact that most Web3 users do not memorize 42-character hexadecimal strings, relying instead on visual shortcuts due to UI constraints in block explorers and wallet interfaces. Attackers leverage this by producing malicious strings that match legitimate recipients' prefixes and suffixes, making it easy for users to unknowingly copy the wrong address. To combat these threats, Binance Wallet offers advanced spam and dust filtering, automatically identifying and suppressing records from malicious or non-standard contracts. This includes a robust filtering system for zero-amount transfers and ultra-low-value transactions specifically crafted to poison transaction histories. Additionally, Binance Wallet provides similarity alerts, triggering high-risk warnings if users attempt to send funds to addresses that look suspiciously similar to frequent contacts but are not exact matches. Users are advised to leverage the address book feature, saving frequently used addresses with clear aliases to avoid copying from transaction histories. Furthermore, the "Middle Character" rule suggests verifying an address by checking the first four, middle four, and last four characters, as attackers rarely match the middle of the string due to computational constraints. For significant sums, performing a test transaction with a small amount first is recommended to verify the receipt before proceeding with the full amount. In conclusion, address poisoning is a habit-driven attack that is preventable by treating transaction history as untrusted, relying on verified contacts, and using security-first wallets like Binance Wallet. By slowing down and confirming the full address, including the middle characters, users can protect themselves from irreversible losses. Taking a few extra seconds for verification can save users from falling victim to these malicious schemes.