Whale loses over $55m in DAI stablecoin to phishing attack

A whale address lost a substantial amount of DAI tokens to a phishing attack after carelessly signing a fraudulent transaction.

On-chain data confirms that the losses amounted to a whopping $55.47 million in Dai (DAI). According to an X post by Lookonchain, the whale’s funds were stored in Maker, a decentralized finance protocol built on Ethereum.

However, after signing the fraudulent transaction, the ownership of these funds was altered, allowing the attacker to take full control of the DAI tokens in the wallet. When the whale tried to withdraw the funds, the transaction failed due to the unintended change in ownership. The hacker then swiftly moved the stolen DAI tokens to a newly created address. 

Through this address, the attacker has since been converting the tokens to Ethereum (ETH) and rerouting them to other wallets. So far, the hacker swapped 27.5 million DAI for approximately 10,625 ETH, ultimately moving most of the funds to CoW, a trading protocol.

Phishing attacks have become increasingly common in the crypto scene. In June, a MakerDAO delegate lost $11 million in various tokens, including USDe, to a similar scam. In May, an NFT trader lost over $145,000 in Bored Ape Yacht Club collectibles, while another investor saw $101,000 in multiple cryptocurrencies vanish due to phishing.

Recent Chainalysis research confirms that since May 2021, approval attacks have accounted for an astonishing $2.7 billion in stolen assets. Previous reports also revealed that victims lost over $46 million to phishing attacks in February this year.