Pink Drainer hackers stole $4.4m in Link

The owner of Chainlink (LINK) tokens lost assets worth $4.4 million due to a hacker attack by a group known as Pink Drainer.

According to available information from Scam Sniffer, attackers tricked the user into signing a transaction related to the IncreaseAllowance function. Immediately after this, the victim lost 275,700 Link through two transfers.

The IncreaseAllowance function allows you to determine the number of tokens the user allows another wallet to transfer from his address.

Subsequently, 68,925 tokens were transferred to a crypto wallet, which Etherscan labels as “PinkDrainer: Wallet 2.” The remaining 206,775 LINK were sent to another address.

Representatives of the Scam Sniffer platform confirmed that the theft of assets is related to the activities of the Pink Drainer group. However, experts could not determine exactly how the attackers forced the user to consent to transfer tokens.

Crypto detective ZachXBT noted that the stolen funds were converted into Ethereum and passed through the eXch service.

“The stolen funds were sold for ETH and are currently being laundered through eXch.”

ZachXBT, crypto detective

Pink Drainer hackers are believed to be responsible for several high-profile attacks on various platforms. We are discussing incidents with the Evomos, Pika Protocol, and Orbiter Finance projects. The group was also involved in a scam in which attackers posed as crypto journalists. In 2023, Pink Drainer hackers stole $18.7 million from 9,068 users, according to Dune Analytics.

In total, hackers stole $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency in 2023. Among the largest cryptocurrency thefts of the year was the hack of the Euler Finance protocol. During the attack, hackers stole approximately $200 million. There were also attacks on BonqDAO, the Poloniex crypto exchange and the Atomic Wallet crypto wallet, each of which caused more than $100 million in damage.