Ledger used X to explain how an “address poisoning” scam targets cryptocurrency users.
Scammers can “poison” a user’s wallet by sending a little amount of cryptocurrency or an NFT that looks like a voucher. This technique is known as address poisoning.
The intention is to fool users into returning the voucher and copying the scammer’s wallet address from their transaction history. As a result, money will go to the fraudulent account rather than a real one. Ledger tweeted:
“These dummy transactions are meant to deceive you into believing that you sent funds to their address in the past – but unless you initiate a transaction to one of these addresses on your own and sign the transaction with your Ledger, no value will actually be transferred from your account”
Scammers have used open-source software to generate addresses that resemble Ledger addresses. To fool people into sending them assets, they might establish addresses with the same first four or five characters and the same last four or five characters. The scam has especially targeted users of the cryptocurrency wallet management app Ledger Live.
How To Avoid The Scam
It’s preferable to reject or ignore the transaction and the related addresses if you worry that a wallet might have been compromised or see a suspicious transaction on an account.
Putting a wallet at risk takes more than just clicking or following a link in a malicious NFT. Using a Ledger device to sign a fraudulent transaction or sharing a 24-word recovery phrase are the only possible threats to wallets.
It’s advisable to stay away from any undesirable addresses or tokens. Ledger suggested that in order to hide the token from view, users right-click on it and select “hide.”
Malicious links in a wallet should generally be avoided as they may direct users to fraudulent websites that aim to deceive them into divulging personal information or approving dangerous transactions.
