What is Inferno Drainer? New Phishing Scams Crypto, NFTs

It’s probably aimed at your favorite crypto projects on the biggest blockchains. But what exactly is Inferno Drainer?

Scam Sniffera platform specializing in the identification of fraud, announced on Friday that the malicious software provider is allegedly linked to thousands of frauds resulting in the theft of several million dollars.

By analyzing off-chain and on-chain data on 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 off chain via Inferno Drainer. Source: Dune.

About 1,699 ETH is reported to have been stolen and distributed to five different addresses, each with between 300 and 400 ETH.

The extent of these scams was revealed when a suspected Inferno Drainer member named “Mr Inferno” appeared in a Scam Sniffer’s 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 a lot of malicious websites,” Scam Sniffer explained to Decrypt. “The Telegram channel helped us connect them.”

The scammer reportedly charges 20% to 30% of the stolen assets in exchange for their malicious software, which is used to create fraudulent websites.

In total, Inferno is reported to have created nearly 689 phishing sites since March 27. “This is the data we have based on the activity on the chain, but it could have started earlier,” Scam told Sniffer Decrypt.

“It can be seen as a ‘malware-as-a-service’ product,” they said. “They provide the software and the malicious web hosting, and they charge based on the amount stolen.”

The victim who has suffered the greatest losses is this walletwho had stolen nearly $400,000 worth of property.

According to Scam Sniffer, the victim attempted to negotiate with the scammer, offering to let them keep 50% of the stolen goods.

Last month, a similar type of “Scam as a favor” called. Toxic waste was already identified by Scam Sniffer. It lost $27 million from 15,000 victims, and the top 5 victims lost a total of $14 million. 530 phishing websites were created, targeting around 170 brands.

Which projects have been targeted?

The fraudsters targeted some of the most famous brands in the crypto ecosystem, such as Pepe, Collab.Land, zkSync, MetaMask and Nakamigos, among others.

In total, around 220 brands are believed to have been used to deceive users.

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

This figure represents an increase of 28% compared to 2021.

However, the total value loss across all events in 2022 was less than half that of 2021 when total funds lost in crypto fraud reached $4.6 billion. This can probably be recalled 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.