The creators of Pink Drainer, a notorious wallet-draining service involved in the theft of over $75 million in assets, have announced their decision to shut down their operations.
In a Telegram announcement, the developers stated, “We have achieved our objective and now, as planned, it is time for us to step back.” This was first reported by on-chain investigator ZachXBT.
Following the publication of this message, the developers will begin the process of winding down all their infrastructure, ensuring that all stored information is wiped and securely destroyed.
Pink Drainer is a software toolkit used by cybercriminals to steal cryptocurrency assets by exploiting technological vulnerabilities, primarily through social engineering techniques and phishing URLs. These scams involve using malicious phishing sites to trick users into authorizing transactions that empty their wallets of cryptocurrencies and NFTs.
Pink Drainer was part of a larger network of phishing-as-a-service platforms, which also included Monkey Drainer and Inferno Drainer. The developers of these services charged fees and took a percentage of the stolen assets as payment.
According to ScamSniffer, Pink Drainer has been connected to the theft of $85 million in crypto from over 21,000 victims in the past year. The hackers behind Pink Drainer have been linked to several high-profile attacks on various platforms, including Evomos, Pika Protocol, and Orbiter Finance. The group was also involved in a scam where attackers posed as crypto journalists.
In total, hackers stole $2 billion in cryptocurrencies in 2023. One of the largest cryptocurrency thefts of the year was the breach of the Euler Finance platform, where hackers stole nearly $200 million. There were also attacks on BonqDAO, the Poloniex crypto exchange, and the Atomic Wallet crypto wallet, each resulting in over $100 million in damages.
For more information, Etherscan users were targeted in a significant phishing campaign through on-site advertisements.