# Users Must Exercise Caution During Transfers: USDT Dust Attacks Surge 612%, Address Poisoning Runs Rampant

The Ethereum Fusaka upgrade has significantly reduced on-chain transaction fees, but address poisoning caused by "dust attacks" in the Ethereum ecosystem is experiencing a sharp surge.

According to data from research firm Wise Crypto, the number of USDT transfers below $0.01 has skyrocketed 612%, jumping from approximately 4.2 million to 29.9 million transactions, driven by reduced costs, which has directly spawned an "industrialized" fraud model.

Specifically, attackers generate counterfeit addresses with first and last characters highly similar to genuine addresses and mix them into victims' transaction histories, aiming to exploit the UI interface's feature of displaying only abbreviated addresses to trick users into mistakenly copying and sending to fraudulent addresses during transfers.

Meanwhile, USDC transactions have not been spared either, with scam quantities increasing from 2.6 million to 14.7 million, an increase of 473%. "Dust" transfers primarily involving ETH and DAI have grown 470% and 62% respectively, with ETH alone seeing 65.2 million new transfer attempts.

After analyzing data from July 2022 to June 2024, security researchers discovered that phishing attacks targeting approximately 1.3 million users on the Ethereum network exceeded 17 million attempts, resulting in losses exceeding $79 million.

According to research cited by Etherscan, only 1 in 10,000 dust transfer attempts succeeds, but a single successful attack is enough to cover the costs of thousands of failed ones.

On-chain investigator Specter's investigation report from December 2025 stated that one victim address lost $50 million due to poisoning attacks; another victim in the comments section also suffered losses exceeding $388,000 from such address-based attacks.

Analysts point out that this attack method relies on scale rather than precision. In certain specific environments, within half an hour after a compliant stablecoin transfer, dozens of poisoned addresses can occur.

Additionally, an X user named Nima reported that after making just two stablecoin transfers, he received over 89 fraud notifications, fully demonstrating the efficiency of automated scripts.

In summary, faced with increasingly rampant dust attacks, Wise Crypto recommends users verify complete recipient addresses before sending funds and avoid directly copying addresses from transaction history, thereby reducing the risk of falling victim to dust attacks.

#DustAttacks