What is the Inferno drainer? New Pilfering Crypto Phishing Scam, NFT

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It likely targets your favorite crypto projects on the biggest blockchains. But what exactly is Inferno Drainer?

Scam Sniffer, a platform specializing in identifying scams, announced on Friday that the malware vendor is linked to thousands of scams that have resulted in the theft of millions of dollars.

By analyzing off-chain and on-chain data across Ethereum, Arbitrum, BNB Chain, and other chains, the security firm identified 4,888 victims who collectively lost over $5.9 million in cryptocurrencies and NFTs.

Hack by chain via Inferno Drainer. Source: Dunes.

Around 1,699 ETH was allegedly stolen and spread across five different addresses, each holding between 300 and 400 ETH.

The extent of these scams was revealed when an alleged Inferno Drainer member named Mr. Inferno appeared in a Scam Sniffer Telegram group.

This led to the discovery of a website promoting the scammer’s services. We have a product that provides Web3 malicious website scanning service for platforms, so we identify many malicious websites, Scam Sniffer explained to Decrypt. The Telegram channel helped us connect them.

The scammer would charge 20% to 30% of the stolen assets in exchange for their malware, which is used to create fraudulent websites.

In total, Inferno has reportedly created nearly 689 phishing websites since March 27. This is the data we have based on on-chain activity, but it could have started earlier, Scam Sniffer told Decrypt.

It can be considered a malicious product as a service,” they said. They provide the software and hosting for the malicious site, and they charge according to the amount stolen.

The victim who suffered the greatest losses was this wallet, which had almost $400,000 in assets stolen.

According to Scam Sniffer, the victim tried to negotiate with the scammer by offering to keep 50% of the stolen goods.

Last month, a similar type of scam as a service called Venom Drainer was already identified by Scam Sniffer. It drained $27 million from 15,000 victims, with the top 5 victims losing $14 million in total. 530 phishing sites were created, targeting approximately 170 brands.

Which projects have been targeted?

Scammers have targeted some of the most well-known brands in the crypto ecosystem, such as Pepe, Collab.Land, zkSync, MetaMask, and Nakamigos, among others.

In total, around 220 marks were allegedly used to deceive users.

Despite the bear market, crypto scams are still common. A recent study by Crystal Blockchain revealed that 2022 emerged as the worst year on record for crypto fraud, with 120 separate incidents reported.

This number represents a 28% increase from 2021.

However, the total value lost for all incidents in 2022 was less than half that of 2021, when total funds lost in crypto scams reached $4.6 billion. This can likely be attributed to the ongoing bear market that started last May.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) breaches are now the most common type of crypto attack, according to the same study.

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