Crypto Safety Alert: Binance’s CZ Targets Address Poisoning After $50 Million Loss

• Binance co-founder proposes stronger defenses against address poisoning, including wallet warnings and blacklists.
• Phishing attacks, including address poisoning, cost victims over $1 billion in 2024, with $7.7 million lost in November alone.
• Industry-wide collaboration and real-time monitoring are critical to safeguarding crypto users.

Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao has outlined new security measures aimed at tackling a rising crypto threat known as address poisoning. 

In a recent blog post, Zhao emphasized that wallets should be able to detect and block “poison addresses” before users can send funds.

He suggested the creation of industry-wide blacklists of suspicious accounts and stronger warnings within wallets. Binance Wallet already includes features to alert users if they attempt to send crypto to a flagged address.

Zhao proposed filtering out spam transactions, particularly small transactions, so that they do not appear on wallet history pages.

Source: Etherscan.io

He proposed his strategy to ensure the safety of users through reduced possibilities of attackers deceiving users into sending cryptos to scam accounts.

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Understanding Address Poisoning in Crypto

Address Poisoning is another phishing attack that involves a hacker transferring a small amount of cryptocurrency to a user’s account. Users tend to replicate these accounts from which they send large sums of money to the scammer.

According to Scam Sniffer statistics, phishing has injured 6,344 people in November alone, with a loss of over $7.7 million. Recently, a user lost $50 million in USDT.

According to cybersecurity researchers, including CertiK, phishing is the most malicious crypto scam of 2024 as fraudsters swipe over $1 billion. Before that, there was pre-existing software that led to phishing attacks.

Address poisoning poses a subtle threat that is on the rise. Victims who frequently duplicate addresses are most vulnerable, and recovery of stolen funds is rare.

Binance Pushes for Ecosystem-Wide Security Collaboration

However, the struggle against address poisoning attacks goes beyond Binance. Zhao called for improved cooperation in the crypto community, such as constant blacklists maintained by cybersecurity entities. These blacklists would enable all wallets to verify the address before making a transaction.

People in the community have been asking about issues involving technology, such as why certain tokens cannot be sent out when broadcasting live.

Source: Binance

Zhao indicated that they can look into this issue in more detail. In addition to resolving issues with technology, there is a need to continue to educate consumers about “phishing.”

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