Crypto Dusting

Crypto Dusting is a cryptocurrencyA cryptocurrency (or crypto currency) is a digital asset des... More 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 blockchainA blockchain—the technology underlying bitcoin and other c... More to de-anonymize wallets. Once the user behind the wallet is identified, attackers can use this information for phishing or extortion attacks.