The team behind Inferno Drainer, a well-known cryptocurrency scam service, failed to launder a substantial amount of eth after privacy protocol Railgun managed to block the transaction.
According to security firm MistTrack, on July 9, the team behind the subscription-based malware… x.com/MistTrack_io/status/1811050114842034278″ target=”_blank” rel=””>tried to launder over 175 Ether, approximately $540,000 at the time of publication.
The transaction was x.com/realScamSniffer/status/1810591197414797796″ target=”_blank” rel=””>initially marked by tracking service Scam Sniffer, which recorded a transfer of 365.7 eth by a phishing scammer linked to Inferno Drainer.
Approximately 190.7 eth was sent to a wallet identified as “0x0fc2e,” and the remainder was transferred to a smart contract wallet linked to Railgun.
Transactions made through the linked Inferno Drainer wallet. Source: x.com/MistTrack_io/status/1810655052425466354″ target=”_blank” rel=””>MistTrack on x.
Railgun is a privacy blockchain protocol that helps obfuscate blockchain transactions. It employs zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive arguments of knowledge (ZK SNARKs), a zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) technology, to verify on-chain data without revealing said data.
This way, users can hide their wallet addresses, which in theory makes it suitable for malicious actors looking to evade the law.
However, in this case, Inferno Drainer's transaction was rejected by Railgun's automated Private Proof of Innocence (Private POI) system.
According to Railgun, the POI system, introduced in 2023, uses cryptographic security to verify that tokens deposited into the Railgun smart contract do not originate from blacklisted addresses.
“Using it, a ZK proof (a small piece of sealed data) is automatically created proving that your tokens are not part of a pre-established list of interactions and wallets,” the system states. official documentation Explain.
While this feature did not help recover the funds, it did send the funds back to the attacker's address, preventing them from being withdrawn.
To date, Inferno Drainer has launched more than 9000 phishing websites. The service has Managed various cryptocurrency and nft projects such as Arbitrum, Optimism, MetaMask, OpenSea, LayerZero Labs and many others.
The service charges 30% for creating phishing websites and another 20% for each successful theft.
Dune Analytics estimates suggest The malware has siphoned off over $180 million in cryptocurrency from over 189,000 victims since its inception in August 2023.
Interestingly, last year, the team behind the scam service announced its plans to discontinue its services in a Telegram post. It also warned its subscribers not to trust anyone claiming to be the same.
Meanwhile, Railgun has been at the center of controversy following accusations of money laundering by North Korean hackers. The project has refuted these claims. It has also received backing from ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who claims that privacy is normal.
