Crypto hacker falls victim to own scam losing $50 million to Inferno Drainer’s phishing attack

The hacker who drained UXLINK in a high-profile exploit has ironically become a victim of crypto crime himself.

On Sept. 23, blockchain security platform Scam Sniffer reported that the attacker lost roughly 542 million UXLINK tokens, valued at more than $50 million, to a phishing scheme executed by another bad actor.

SlowMist co-founder Yu Xian suggested the theft bore the hallmarks of Inferno Drainer, a notorious “draining-as-a-service” (DaaS) provider known for selling phishing kits and fake websites.

Inferno Drainer’s involvement would not be entirely surprising, considering the group is responsible for stealing several million dollars from unsuspecting crypto users across multiple chains.

Considering this, Xian mocked the irony of the situation, noting that the hacker fell for basic authorization traps similar to those he had deployed against UXLINK.

UXLINK hack

The original UXLINK breach occurred on Sept. 22, when the AI-powered Web3 social platform was compromised.

Blockchain security firm Cyvers reported that the breach began when an attacker executed a delegateCall function to strip admin privileges and add themselves as an owner to the platform’s smart contract.

This move allowed the theft of $4 million in USDT, $500,000 in USDC, 3.7 wrapped Bitcoin, and 25 ETH. The stolen stablecoins were quickly swapped into DAI, while funds moved across the Ethereum and Arbitrum networks.

Hours later, a second address received 10 million UXLINK tokens, worth about $3 million, and began offloading them through decentralized exchanges.

By Sept. 23, the situation had escalated further. Blockchain analytics platform Lookonchain reported that the attacker minted 2 billion UXLINK tokens and sold large amounts across bEXs and centralized exchanges, netting 6,732 ETH, roughly $28 million.

In response, UXLINK confirmed the exploit and moved to limit the damage.

The team stated that it was working with exchanges to freeze stolen assets. It also added that it has enlisted the help of blockchain security firm PeckShield, and urged trading platforms to suspend UXLINK trading pairs temporarily.

It added:

“We will promptly initiate a token swap plan to ensure the integrity of our token economy. Further details and instructions for the token swap will be announced shortly.”

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