Hackers attacked cryptocurrency wallets by sending tokens on behalf of Ethereum founder

Ethereum investors and holders of ERC-20 tokens have reported a massive «dust attack» on their cryptocurrency wallets. Users complained that on September 5 at 7 a.m., fraudsters began distributing an unknown ERC-20 token. When analyzing transactions in Etherscan, many cryptocurrency users discovered that they had received an asset from the wallet of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. However, a closer look revealed that the transactions were initiated by a different address that had nothing to do with Buterin’s profile.

It turned out that the name of the token contained the address of a suspicious website that was created on September 3. The main page contained an invitation to vote. The fraudsters asked whether investors supported the upcoming transition of the Ethereum ecosystem to a «green blockchain.» The attackers claimed that each participant would receive Ethereum coins for free if the majority of users voted. When the user chose the «agree» or «disagree» option, the website requested authorization of phishing transactions in the MetaMask wallet. If the request was confirmed, the investor would lose their funds.

As a reminder, Ethereum developers have once again announced the date of Ethereum’s tentative transition to the green blockchain. According to Explorer.BTC.com, The Merge will take place on September 15 at 02:17:03. In August, the leading Ethereum developer Marius Van Der Weyden also announced the exact time of the Ethereum network merge (Merge) — September 14 at 22:57:34. Prior to that, developer Tim Bako named September 19 as the day when ETH will be merged to PoS, and other developers agreed with him.