● 36 entries

Web3 & Blockchain

51% AttackAn attack where a single entity controls a majority of a blockchain's mining hash rate or staking power and uses it to rewrite history, double-spend, or censor transactions.
Account Abstraction (ERC-4337)An Ethereum standard that replaces externally-owned accounts with smart-contract wallets able to express arbitrary signing logic — social recovery, session keys, sponsored gas, multi-factor approval — without Layer 1 protocol changes.
Address PoisoningAddress poisoning seeds a victim's transaction history with attacker-controlled lookalike addresses so they later copy-paste the wrong one and send funds to the attacker.
Blockchain SecurityThe discipline of protecting distributed ledgers, their consensus mechanisms, smart contracts, and surrounding infrastructure from compromise, fraud, and theft.
Clipboard HijackerA clipboard hijacker (crypto clipper) is malware that watches the OS clipboard and silently substitutes a victim's copied cryptocurrency address with one controlled by the attacker.
Cold WalletA crypto wallet whose private keys are generated and stored on a device that is kept offline, so they are not exposed to remote network attackers.
Cryptocurrency Mixer / TumblerA cryptocurrency mixer (or tumbler) pools and shuffles deposits from many users so that on-chain links between source and destination addresses are obscured.
DeFiDecentralized Finance: financial protocols built from smart contracts on public blockchains that offer lending, trading, and other services without traditional intermediaries.
Dust AttackA dust attack sends tiny amounts of cryptocurrency to many wallets so that, when the recipients later spend the dust, on-chain analysts can cluster and de-anonymize the addresses.
EIP-712 SigningAn Ethereum standard for typed, structured off-chain message signing that lets wallets display human-readable intent (e.g. 'sell 1 ETH to user X by Friday') and bind the signature to a domain, chain, and contract.
Flash Loan AttackA DeFi exploit that borrows a massive uncollateralised flash loan within one transaction to manipulate prices or governance and steal funds before the loan is repaid.
Front-Running (Blockchain)On-chain trade abuse where an actor sees a pending transaction in the mempool and submits their own transaction first to profit from the predictable price impact.
Hardware WalletA dedicated physical device that stores cryptocurrency private keys in a tamper-resistant secure element and signs transactions offline.
Hot WalletA crypto wallet whose private keys reside on an internet-connected device, trading lower security for low-friction signing of frequent transactions.
Inferno DrainerA 2022–2023 crypto-wallet-drainer-as-a-service that emptied tens of thousands of victims' wallets by phishing them into signing token-approval transactions on fake mint and airdrop sites, before shutting down in November 2023.
Layer 2A scaling network that processes transactions off-chain while inheriting security from a base Layer 1 blockchain such as Ethereum or Bitcoin.
Ledger WalletA hardware wallet line by French firm Ledger SAS that stores cryptocurrency keys inside a certified secure-element chip.
MEV (Maximal Extractable Value)The profit that block builders, validators, or searchers can extract by reordering, inserting, or censoring transactions within the blocks they produce.
Multisig WalletA cryptocurrency wallet that requires m-of-n signatures from independent keys to authorise a transaction, removing single-key compromise as a fatal failure.
Nomad Bridge Hack (2022)An August 2022 attack on the Nomad cross-chain bridge where a single misconfigured trusted-root value allowed any user to copy-paste an existing withdrawal transaction with a different recipient — a chaotic ~$190 million crowd-drain.
Oracle ManipulationAn attack that distorts the price or data feed used by a smart contract so the contract makes wildly wrong decisions about lending, liquidations, or settlement.
Permit2 PhishingPermit2 phishing tricks an Ethereum user into signing a Uniswap Permit2 off-chain message that grants an attacker the right to transfer the victim's ERC-20 tokens.
Recovery PhraseA list of 12 or 24 words generated under the BIP-39 standard that encodes the master seed of a cryptocurrency wallet and can restore all derived keys.
Reentrancy AttackA smart-contract exploit where an external call lets the attacker re-enter the calling function before its state is updated, draining funds in a recursive loop.
Ronin Bridge Hack (2022)A March 2022 attack on the Ronin Network bridge that drained ~$625 million in ETH and USDC — at the time the largest crypto bridge hack ever — attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group via compromise of validator keys.
Rug PullAn exit scam in which the developers of a crypto token, NFT collection, or DeFi protocol drain liquidity or treasury funds and disappear, leaving holders with worthless assets.
Sandwich AttackA form of MEV in which an attacker places a buy order before a victim's pending swap and a sell order immediately after, profiting from the artificial price move they induce.
Seed PhraseA human-readable list of 12 or 24 words (typically a BIP-39 mnemonic) that encodes the master secret from which all keys of a crypto wallet are derived.
Signature Phishing (Web3)A Web3 phishing pattern that tricks a user into signing an EIP-712 or `personal_sign` message that authorizes the attacker to move tokens, transfer NFTs, or take wallet actions — without ever asking for a seed phrase.
Smart Contract AuditAn independent security review of smart-contract source code, deployment configuration, and economic design to find vulnerabilities before launch or upgrade.
Smart Contract SecurityThe practice of designing, reviewing, and operating on-chain programs so they cannot be exploited to steal funds, freeze logic, or violate intended business rules.
Trezor WalletAn open-source hardware wallet line by SatoshiLabs that stores cryptocurrency seeds offline and signs transactions through a built-in screen and buttons.
Wallet DrainerMalicious software or a phishing kit that tricks crypto-wallet users into signing transactions or approvals that hand over all valuable tokens and NFTs.
WalletConnect SecurityThe security properties and known weak points of the WalletConnect open protocol, which lets dApps pair with mobile and hardware wallets over a relay network using QR codes or deep links to exchange signed messages.
Wormhole Bridge Hack (2022)A February 2022 attack on the Wormhole cross-chain bridge between Solana and Ethereum that minted 120,000 wETH worth ~$326 million by exploiting a signature-verification flaw in the bridge's smart contract.
ZK-RollupA Layer 2 scaling technique that batches transactions off-chain and posts a succinct zero-knowledge proof of their validity to the underlying Layer 1 blockchain.