Uniswap News: Phishing attack stole $4.7 million

Originally the hack was perceived as an exploit of the new Uniswap v3 protocol but it was soon realized that this is was sophisticated phishing campaign targeting Uniswap v3 protocol liquidity providers (LPs), resulting in the theft of more than $4.7 million in Ether (ETH). However, the community is suggesting that the losses may be far higher.

On Monday, MetaMask security researcher Harry Denley was among the first to raise the alarm about the assault, informing his 13,000 Twitter followers of the latest Uniswap news that 73,399 addresses had been issued fraudulent ERC-20 tokens in order to steal their assets.

According to a tweet from Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, at least $4.7 million in ETH was destroyed in the hack. However, there are indications in the crypto world that the infiltration may result in more significant losses.

Prominent Crypto Twitter user 0xSisyphus revealed that a "big LP" with around 16,140 ETH, worth $17.5 million, may also have been phished.

How does a phishing scam work? The phishing scam, according to Denley, operates by giving unwary users a "malicious token" called "UniswapLP" that is disguised as coming from the genuine "Uniswap V3: Positions NFT" contract by modifying the "From" field in the blockchain transaction explorer.

Users who are interested in their new tokens will be led to a website that claims to allow them to exchange their new tokens for Uniswap (UNI), which is now worth $5.34 per token.

Instead, the website would send the customers' addresses and browser client information to the attackers' command center, where they would attempt to drain crypto assets from their wallets.

According to a Reddit thread explaining the incident, the attackers took native tokens such as Ether, ERC-20 tokens, and nonfungible tokens (NFTs) (namely Uniswap LP positions) from victims.

The Uniswap price plummeted to a 24-hour low of $5.34 as a result of CZ's initial worrisome statements. The price of UNI has subsequently rebounded to $5.69.

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