Crypto Dusting

Crypto Dusting is a cryptocurrency privacy attack that sees malicious actors sending a very small amounts of coins—typically referred to as “dust”—to identify the person or entity that controls the wallet. The value of dust is below the threshold required to execute a valid transaction so users must consolidate the dust to exact a trade. Consolidating dust from several addresses at once can compromise a user’s privacy by publicly linking accounts that may not have been linked previously. 

In a dusting attack, hackers or scammers “dust” a large number of addresses, anticipating that the dust will be consolidated within the wallets which could allow bad actors to analyze transactions on the public blockchain to de-anonymize wallets. Once the user behind the wallet is identified, attackers can use this information for phishing or extortion attacks.

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