A recent surge in Ethereum network activity may be linked to address poisoning attacks exploiting lower transaction fees, according to a security researcher.
Researcher Andrey Sergeenkov said Ethereum has seen unusually high address creation and transaction volumes since December.
Network activity retention reportedly climbed to nearly 8 million addresses in a single month.
Daily Ethereum transactions reached an all-time high of close to 2.9 million.
The week beginning Jan. 12 recorded 2.7 million new addresses, around 170% above typical levels.
Sergeenkov said daily transactions also surged beyond 2.5 million during the same period.
He suggested the spike may be driven by mass spam campaigns known as address poisoning attacks.
These attacks have become cheaper after Ethereum’s December Fusaka upgrade reduced gas fees.
Network transaction fees fell by more than 60% in the weeks following the upgrade.
“Address poisoning has become disproportionately attractive for attackers,”
Andrey Sergeenkov said.
“You can't scale infrastructure without addressing user security first,” Andrey Sergeenkov said.
Address poisoning involves scammers sending small transactions from wallet addresses designed to mimic legitimate ones.
Victims may unknowingly copy these fraudulent addresses when making future transactions.
Attackers typically send small amounts, often less than one dollar, to create misleading transaction histories.
Sergeenkov identified suspected dust distributor wallets by analysing addresses receiving tiny initial transfers.
He then filtered wallets that sent transactions to more than 10,000 addresses.
“These poisoning addresses then distribute dust to millions of potential victims, creating false entries in transaction histories,”
Andrey Sergeenkov said.
Some dust distributor addresses sent funds to more than 400,000 recipients.
More than $740,000 has reportedly been stolen from 116 victims through these attacks so far.
At the time of reporting, Ethereum price was $3,166.41.