Uncovering the Growing Impersonation Scams Targeting DeFi Executives

Tres Finance Warns Users of Fraudulent Scheme

Tres Finance, a DeFi protocol, cautioned its users about a fraudulent scheme involving the creation of counterfeit tokens that mimic genuine transactions.

In an interview, co-founder Tal Zackon and technical lead Idan David of Tres Finance discussed the particulars of a scam that utilizes fake transactions designed to appear legitimate. The two revealed that the scammers attempt to deceive users into copying the wrong wallet address and sending their money there.

David went on to explain that fraudsters usually single out wallets with sizable holdings of stablecoins like Tether (USDT) or USD Coin (USDC). After they have identified their targets, they generate wallet addresses that appear similar and generate tokens that look like the authentic ones. David stated:

The scammers craft a transaction that appears to be genuine, from the wallet address prefix to the amount of tokens sent to the address. This makes it look like the target is the one who is continuously sending transactions to the wallet address the scammers put in place. Consequently, those who use transaction history to identify wallet addresses are in danger of sending funds to the scammers.

Zackon cautioned businesses against utilizing explorers to monitor their finances. “Do not rely on explorers to keep tabs on your financial transactions. You need to utilize a specialized system that will assist you in verifying the asset and the third party you are dealing with,” he declared.

CertiK receives a reward of $500,000 following the detection of a security threat on the Sui blockchain.

Users Urged to Exercise Caution

The executive also issued the warning to the end users. Zackon suggested that they should keep a record of the addresses they are dealing with in a spreadsheet. Moreover, the co-founder of Tres Finance suggested that it would be prudent to “double-check each and every transaction” as well as the addresses that users are engaging with.

Metamask Issues Warning Regarding Address Poisoning

On January 12th, the wallet provider Metamask issued a caution regarding a similar scam known as “address poisoning”. This involves scammers sending tokens worth nothing to wallets which have been generated with vanity addresses, and which have similar first and last characters to the intended target. This adds fraudulent transactions to the history of the wallet, in the hope that the user will mistakenly copy and paste the address when making a transaction.

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