"If you look like a hacker, you'll steal someone else's."
The cryptocurrency market is constantly plagued with news of theft or fraud of digital assets and recently hackers reportedly stole $20 million in stablecoin Tether (USDT).
Although a zero-transfer phishing attack actually requires the hacker to create an address identical to the recipient's address, the hacker appears to have successfully executed it.
Through observation, the hacker made a fake transaction that looked like a legitimate transfer of USDT from the victim's wallet but in fact no funds were transferred and the victim unknowingly sent $20 million to the hacker's address.
Even so, hackers are still unable to deposit or withdraw the stolen USDT as USDT will take swift action as soon as they discover an unauthorized transaction.
There is no denying that USDT has demonstrated its ability to act quickly against fraud and protect users of the digital asset, but it has left the crypto community wondering who the victims are.
Since crypto users usually only check the first and last few digits of a wallet address before making a transfer, hackers have taken advantage of these unsuspecting users of digital assets to transfer crypto to them.
It is well known that the growing popularity of crypto has led to more sophisticated fraud methods resulting in victims losing $108 million in the first half of 2023 due to phishing attacks.