Scammers create Blockworks clone site to drain crypto wallets

Phishing scammers have cloned the websites of crypto media outlet Blockworks and Ethereum blockchain scanner Etherscan to trick unsuspecting readers into connecting their wallets to a crypto drainer.

A fake Blockworks site displays a fake “BREAKING” news report of a supposed multimillion-dollar “approvals exploit” on the decentralized exchange Uniswap and encourages users to a faked Etherscan website to rescind approvals. 

The fake Uniswap news article was posted on Reddit across several popular crypto-related subreddits by seemingly compromised Reddit accounts.

The fake Etherscan website, which displays a purported token and smart contract approval checker, instead contains a wallet drainer.

Blockchain security firm Beosin reviewed the drainer’s smart contract and told Cointelegraph the attacker hopes to drain wallets with at least 0.1 Ether (ETH), worth $180. However, the drainer is incorrectly set up as “there is no phishing transaction prompted after a wallet is connected.”

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An age check of the domains shows the fake Etherscan site, approvalscan.io, was registered on Oct. 25 and the faked Blockworks site, blockworks.media, was registered a day later.

In an Oct. 25 X (Twitter) post, Web3 anti-scam platform Scam Sniffer showed that scammers had deployed a wallet drainer on a website cloning the crypto news outlet Decrypt.

the victim signed Uniswap Permit2 malicious phishing signatures like this pic.twitter.com/NcXIotokwL

— Scam Sniffer | Web3 Anti-Scam (@realScamSniffer) October 26, 2023

Sam Sniffer told Cointelegraph the faked Blockworks and Decrypt sites are, however, run by different scammers.

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Update (Oct. 27, 1:30 am UTC): This article has been updated with further information and comments from Beosin and Scam Sniffer.