On January 3, 2024, Mandiant’s X social media account was taken over and subsequently used to distribute links to a cryptocurrency drainer phishing page. Working with X, we were able to regain control of the account and, based on our investigation over the following days, we found no evidence of malicious activity on, or compromise of, any Mandiant or Google Cloud systems that led to the compromise of this account. The following blog post provides additional insight into the drainer leveraged in this campaign, which we have dubbed CLINKSINK.
Numerous actors have conducted campaigns since December 2023 that leverage the CLINKSINK drainer to steal funds and tokens from Solana (SOL) cryptocurrency users. Drainers are malicious scripts and smart contracts that actors can leverage to siphon funds and/or digital assets, such as non-fungible tokens from victims’ cryptocurrency wallets after they are tricked into approving transactions.
The identified campaigns included at least 35 affiliate IDs that are associated with a common drainer-as-a-service (DaaS), which uses CLINKSINK. The operator(s) of this DaaS provide the drainer scripts to affiliates in exchange for a percentage of the stolen funds, typically around 20%. We estimate the total value of assets stolen by affiliates in these recent campaigns to be at least $900,000 USD.
