Dusting Attacks - Reading Assignment

1.- The goal is to link accounts with identity and blackmail people.

2.- Showing all the balances and linking with others, could this put in risk other people who have done TX with the deanonymize ?

3.- Dusting attacks is a malware that attack both types unless they have the same system as Samourai Wallet to detect this extra coins.

4…- It detect no identify small amounts in order not to use them, to not compromise your id. They notify this suspected coins and advise not to be spend.

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Not sure what you mean. The purpose of dusting attack is to link addresses together. When one creates a transaction that uses an UTXO that is part of a dusting attack, it will combine with other UTXOs in the wallet, thus creating the link. If the attackers are then able to link these addresses to an entity, it would be considered as a threat to the privacy of the individual. :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the clarification:)
The doubt was about, if the attackers can link more people from one identity ?

  1. A dusting attack is hackers sending tiny amounts of coins to wallets, then tracking the transaction activity of the wallets, then using a combined analysis of different addresses to attempt to de-anonymize the owner of the wallet

  2. The victim can be at risk of phishing attacks or cyber-extortion threats

  3. Dusting attacks work on both type-1 and type-2 wallets

  4. Samourai Wallet added a feature to mark suspicious funds as “Do Not Spend”

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Its more probabilistic, chainalasys usually involves lost of statistic. If the address is not directly linked with KYC you can predict that some addresses belong to the same wallet.
For example if UTXOs from multiple addresses are used in a new tx, there is a high probability all of them belong to the same wallet, it could also be part of a CoinJoin tx, but these are rare so there is a much higher chance of the first option being true. :slight_smile:
Its all about statistics and most of the time its fairly reliable. But you have probably heard this quote from some famous statistician: Lies, damned lies, and statistics :stuck_out_tongue:

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  1. What is the goal of a dusting attack?
    A) To identify a person or company linked to a specific wallet.

  2. If a dusting attack is successful, how is the victim at risk?
    A) They can identify who you are and use this knowledge for phishing attacks or cyber extortion threats.

  3. Do dusting attacks work for type-1 HD wallets, type-2, or both?
    A) Both it gets sent to numerous wallets.

  4. What features did Samourai Wallet add to protect against dusting attacks?
    A) i would expect there is an alert? ( not discussed Samourai wallets yet) Do not spend the dust!

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They did add a do not spend feature :slight_smile:

Haha haha no first time I hear this great quote :smile::smile::smile:
So better to do individual tx unless we are using CoinJoin,
Many thanks Alko !!:blush:

To track the activity of a wallet.

Revealing financial activity without knowing it.

No.

It has a real-time alert implemented for dusting attacks.

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  1. To obtain the identity of the wallet owner.
  2. They are at risk of extortion of phising.
  3. Both.
  4. Allows you to ring fence certain utxos
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1 To identify the entity who “owns” the wallet and by doing so blackmail the owner.
2 The scammer might get access to information about the owner and thus being able to threaten the owner in some way to transfer funds or perhaps even hijacking the wallet.
3 No wallet per se. But as traceability requires the dust to be used in a new transaction you may prevent tracing by exclusion of the dust from all future transactions.
(Does the feature of some exchanges, dust => native tokens, inhibit dust attacks?)
4An alarm feature, warning owners if suspicious transactions appeared in the balance. If the transaction was found fraudulent, the owner could freeze the transaction by labeling it “Do Not Spend”.

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No if you mean like the collect dust feature on Binance its just to convert small balances to their token BNB so its not the same.
If you have funds on an exchange you can’t really be attacked by a dusting attack since the address you are using is usually just used to deposit funds that gets later sent to the main address of the exchange (you can check that in the explorer). Also these are not your keys anyway :slight_smile:

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Once upon a time, you had to be qualified to become a politician.
'There are three kinds of lies : lies , damned lies , and statistics '? This quotation is often attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, the 19th century British Prime Minister. The source for this view is the autobiography of Mark Twain, where he makes that attribution.

This is my point of entry when I start the topic of descriptive statistics with my upper secondary students.

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  1. A dusting attack refers to a relatively new kind of malicious activity where hackers and scammers try
    and break the privacy of Bitcoin users by sending tiny amounts of coins to their personal wallets.
  2. The transactional activity of these wallets is then tracked down by the attackers, who perform a
    combined analysis of several addresses as an attempt to identify the person or company behind
    each wallet.

3.No, The best way to protect against such activity is to use the strategy advised by Samurai Wallet,
which provided the users with a “do not spend” feature. This allows the user to mark small, unknown
deposits in their wallet in order to never use this UTXO for further transactions.

Dusting attacks are mainly targeted at private wallet holders. Therefore, it’s essential to keep track of
incoming funds, and it’s always a good idea to use a wallet address only once, which provides further
protection. Other measures may include installing a
private network, or VPN, along with a trustworthy antivirus on all of the devices that are used to
access crypto, as well as encrypting wallets and storing keys inside encrypted folders.

4.The Samurai Wallet for example, has a “Do not spend” feature. This allows the user to mark
unknown small deposits on his wallet in order to never use this UTXO for further transactions.This
feature is a reaction of the developers of the Samurai Wallet, who already noticed at the end of
October 2018 that many users of their Wallet had become victims of such Dusting attacks.

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  1. What is the goal of a dusting attack?
    The goal is to link the dusted addresses and wallets to their respective companies or individuals.

  2. If a dusting attack is successful, how is the victim at risk?
    Attackers may use this knowledge against their targets, either through phishing attacks or cyber-extortion threats.

  3. Do dusting attacks work for type-1 HD wallets, type-2, or both?
    I’m assuming both.

  4. What features did Samourai Wallet add to protect against dusting attacks?
    They added real-time alert for dust tracking as well as a “Do Not Spend” feature that lets users mark suspicious funds, so these are not included in future transactions.

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1.- The goal is to deanonymize the person or company behind each wallet affected by the attack.
2.- the attackers may use this knowledge against their targets, either through elaborated phishing.
3.- No by default, if you include that dust amount in a bigger transaction involving other UTXOs you expose and lik these adresses.
4.- They implemented a “do not spend” feature to allow users to mark those suspicious funds and prevent them from using them.

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  1. To deanonymise wallet user.

  2. Can be subject to phising scam or blackmail.

  3. Both

  4. Implemented the ‘Do not spend’ feature.

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  1. What is the goal of a dusting attack?
    • Break a cryptocurrency user privacy and anonymity
  2. If a dusting attack is successful, how is the victim at risk?
    • Because once this user is identified , this user can be target for phishing or cyber-extortion threats
  3. Do dusting attacks work for type-1 HD wallets, type-2, or both?
    • Both , since by phishing attacker could gain access to funds by different ways
  4. What features did Samourai Wallet add to protect against dusting attacks?
    • Mark tiny and strange received transactions as “Do Not Spend” , so that the attacker cannot trace the UTXO once spent.
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The attacker wouldn’t get any access to funds. It would only break the privacy of the addresses by linking them to a specific user. :slight_smile:

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sure make sense Alko89 , i meant that by phishing attacker could get access to funds , but you are right not directly. Thanks for clarifying