Cryptocurrency holders are encouraged to take a closer look at public addresses for transferring their cryptocurrency.
Scams are on the rise in the crypto world, and you better be careful. Its name: “treatment poisoning” or public address poisoning.
Public address vs. private address
Before explaining this type of fraud, let us remember the difference between a public address and a private address. A private address is a string of characters that must be kept secret, that allows the user to perform transactions (send cryptocurrencies, etc.). Only so-called cold or hot wallets allow users to keep their private keys and thus their cryptocurrencies. On the contrary, cryptocurrency exchanges keep the private keys of users who therefore do not keep their crypto.
For its part, the public address is a random string of numbers and letters comparable to the RIB in France. A user can own multiple public addresses, with each address tied to a owned cryptocurrency. The user will be able to send a public address to a recipient to receive encryption at that address. These addresses can also be referenced on the blockchain (Ethereum, Bitcoin, etc.). The two addresses (public and private) work together to complete the transaction.
Address extension
When a person uses a crypto wallet (wallet), they can hold several public addresses on which to transfer cryptocurrencies. Thus, to make a transfer from account A to account B (platform to wallet, wallet to wallet, etc.), manipulation consists of “copying” the public address to which cryptocurrencies can be transferred and “pasting”. From the broker you want to make the transfer from. At that time, any knowledgeable user will verify that the copied and pasted address still matches. However, this address is very long and difficult to remember, and some users may fall into traps.
The global address looks like a string of letters and numbers like this: 2A1xyzeTBFMCrypto65FRD78CffftFRdXsstxddX
Until now, we already knew about this type of fraud. Your computer is infected with a virus and you copy and paste which makes you paste the scammer’s public address. We don’t know much about this new type of fraud called “headline poisoning”.
In general, when a user wants to quickly perform a transfer using copy and paste, they mainly look at the first 5 and last 5 characters of their public address. “It is this trend that exploits processing poisoning,” MetaMask Digital Wallet explained Thursday.
Address poisoning is where scammers send “worthless transactions to your account from an address that is very similar to yours. They hope you inadvertently copy that address into your transaction history in the future.”
The result: simple carelessness can lead to your coins being diverted to the public address of the scammer. How do you protect yourself from such a threat? MetaMask calls a core file.
“There is no way to prevent people, including scammers, from sending transactions to your address,” since those addresses are public on the block chain.
On the other hand, in the face of this phenomenon, MetaMask advises taking the time to verify that the public address you are transferring cryptocurrencies to matches yours (even if it is longer than just looking at the first and last five characters). Likewise, it is advised to avoid copying and pasting from transaction history, as malicious addresses can sneak in.
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