LTC Dusting Attack Affected Nearly 300,000 Addresses: Report

The recent dusting attack against the fourth-biggest altcoin Litecoin (LTC) affected 294,582 addresses, according to a new report. The finding added to an earlier estimates provided by the Binance Academy that upwards of 50 accounts were affected.

Blockchain data and metrics firm Glassnode revealed its latest findings in a tweet on Aug. 15, saying that the LTC dusting attack affected 294,582 addresses. The analysis ostensibly also indicated a similar scale attack in April.

Source: glassnode

As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the LTC dusting attack occurred on Aug. 9. In the dedicated tweet, Binance linked to a transaction that Binance named as part of the attack in which a fraction (0.00000546 LTC) of a coin to 50 addresses.

A network-wide event

James Jager, project lead at Binance Academy and the person who first identified the attack, discussed the event with Cointelegraph. Jager said:

“It was network-wide, which meant it affected all users of litecoin that had an active litecoin address at the time. The address of the person responsible for the dusting attack can be found here: https://blockchair.com/litecoin/address/LeEMCDHmvDb2MjhVHGphYmoGeGFvdTuk2K

Jager went on to further explain that the attacker was seemingly unaware of his actions:

“The person behind the dusting attack owns a mining pool based out of Russia, EMCD[dot]io. They reached out to express that their intent was to advertise their mining pool to the users of Litecoin, however, it's unclear from our perspective or anyone else's as to whether there were alternative motives.”

Commenting on the attack Jan Happel, co-founder of Glassnode, told Cointelegraph that “the term 'dusting attack' is a fairly broad statement and the actual intent behind the attacks don't necessarily always align to be the same.”