In a surprising twist, a cunning actor has successfully executed a meticulously planned Sybil attack, leaving the cryptocurrency community in awe. Notably, a prominent Chinese reporter, Colin Wu, took to his official Twitter account, Wu Blockchain, to shed light on this unfolding incident.
The attacker’s ingenious strategy began by channeling small amounts of Ether into numerous wallets, introducing their proprietary token known as Gemstone (GEM), a closed-source creation. This sinister plot extended to whitelisting all these wallets, effectively asserting control over self-deployed tokens.
On September 11, Wu took to Twitter to unveil the “professional airdrop hunter’s” attack:
There is a professional airdrop hunter who owns 21,877 sybil wallets on zkSync. His strategy is to fund all wallets with a very small amount of ETH, and then deploys non-open source GEM tokens. It created a non-open source dex for itsself and used for transactions between its…
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) September 11, 2023
The audacious plan delves further into creating a concealed decentralized exchange (DEX), which remains closed-source, as a covert means to facilitate discreet asset transfers among the manipulated wallets. To amplify the value of GEM tokens, the assailant cunningly injected over 80 ETH into their DEX contract. This tactical move was followed by a shrewd market test involving GEM token trading. Subsequently, the attacker orchestrated the swap of GEM tokens from the 21,877 wallets, reaping profits ranging from 0.6 to 0.7 ether per transaction.
The mastermind utilized a meticulously programmed bot to carry out transactions, ensuring seamless automation while evading manual interference. Staggeringly, the attacker adjusted liquidity levels as needed, achieving a remarkable $10,000 volume and 10 transactions per wallet while incurring meager fees of merely $1.5 to $2 in ether. The timing of these transactions was orchestrated with surgical precision, spanning different months, weeks, and days to mimic the activities of legitimate Layer-2 projects.
However, the attacker’s reach was curtailed, limited to 10,000 wallets, due to constraints imposed by zkScan Explorer’s historical data. Yet, there is hope on the horizon, as Matter Labs, the formidable team behind zkSync, is actively engaged in identifying and mitigating this audacious Sybil attack by detecting GEM token claim contracts.
The crypto world is left astounded by this exploit, a stark reminder of the ever-present need for vigilance and security in the blockchain realm. The hunt for the elusive mastermind behind this sophisticated Sybil attack continues, leaving the crypto community on the edge of their seats.
