Solana wallet drainer activity has increased in recent months as the price of SOL has risen, making SOL and SOL-based memecoin holders more appealing to phishing targets.
According to blockchain security firm Chainalysis, one of the largest online communities devoted to just one popular Solana SOL$100 wallet drainer kit has over 6K members.
Several blockchain security firms have expressed concern in the last week about an increasing number of malicious Solana DApps that have targeted users with Solana-based drainers.
He also mentioned that there were Russian connections to the small community of developers selling drainer kits because the documentation was frequently in Russian.
“The largest community devoted to one Solana drainer has about 6,200 members,” he explained before adding:
“There is a single well-received Solana drainer kit that links to the same developer and is advertised through several channels.” Most drainer kits that are used in crimes today are neither exclusive to Solana nor special.”
To counteract the threat, he suggested using tools like Wallet Guard, which recently added protections against Solana drainers. He went on to say that phishing with malicious links was a popular attack vector.
“Many drainers take advantage of people’s FOMO and spam users in DeFi communities with links to legitimate-looking but fraudulent websites.” “Social media accounts and Discord communities are frequently hacked and used to promote links to drainer websites,” he continued.
Many cybercriminals began offering Solana drainer kits to scammers in December, according to blockchain security firm Certik.
According to screenshots shared by CertiK, the kits are sold on private hacker chat groups and the dark web for as little as $250 per month.
Crypto drainer kits are designed to aid cybercrime by draining funds from digital wallets. They primarily operate via phishing scams, luring victims to enter their wallet information on bogus websites.
It’s unclear how much has been taken from all Solana drainers at this time, Certik analyst Joe Green told Cointelegraph. “They take a similar approach to the EVM drainers that we’ve seen where the provider takes a cut of the stolen assets,” in some cases.
“Phishing on the Solana network isn’t new, but with the price of Solana rising, cybercriminals are shifting their focus to individuals in the ecosystem.”
The Web3 security company Blockaid revealed on January 2 that a specific Solana drainer had succeeded in stealing SOL and SPL tokens valued at hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The report stated that “these highly sophisticated drainers can deceive the simulations used by Solana wallets, leading users to unknowingly sign malicious transactions.”
