Victim Recovers Stolen Crypto Funds Following Phishing Attack From 1 Year Ago

A victim of a $24 million phishing attack has received a partial refund after the perpetrator voluntarily returned some of the stolen funds.

According to Scam Sniffer, a web3 anti-scam solution, the attacker sent back $9.3 million to the victim. The theft occurred in late 2023, involving 9,579 Lido Staked Ether (stETH) and 4,850 Rocket Pool (rETH) tokens.

💰 The scammer returned $9.27M in DAI to the victim.

(credits: @bax1337) https://t.co/xwSASQOUis pic.twitter.com/T5vF1Ak3wo

— Scam Sniffer | Web3 Anti-Scam (@realScamSniffer) July 13, 2024

The victim fell prey to the attack by approving “Increase Allowance” transactions during the phishing incident, a common tactic used to gain control over assets within a wallet.

This vulnerability, particularly with ERC-20 tokens, allows bad actors to exploit users through malicious smart contracts. The attacker, using the Railgun privacy protocol, obscured the returned funds, totaling 38.84% of the stolen amount.

Despite rare instances of funds being returned by attackers, phishing scams remain a significant issue in the crypto industry, with losses exceeding $290 million reported by Scam Sniffer in 2023 alone.