ARP Poisoning Attack: $1.64 million has been stolen this year, and your Wallet could be next.

The latest data is shocking: there have been over 290,000 and 40,000 ARP poisoning attacks on the BSC and ETH public chains, respectively, with more than 186,000 independent addresses compromised, resulting in a loss of $1.64 million. This wave of attacks began to erupt in mid to late November and is still ongoing.

How does an attack happen? In simple terms, it occurs in three steps.

Step 1: The attacker sends a spoofed ARP message to your network, claiming that their MAC address corresponds to a legitimate IP address.

Step 2: Your device believes it and redirects all target traffic to the attacker.

Step 3: The attacker intercepts, alters, or directly blocks your transaction

The ARP protocol was designed in 1982, at which time security issues were completely overlooked - it does not verify the authenticity of messages, allowing any device to impersonate anyone. This historical vulnerability is now being exploited by hackers.

On-chain Performance: A $0 Transfer is a Trap

The BSC chain analysis from X-explore has revealed a bizarre pattern: attackers initiate multiple transactions using 0 dollar transfers. While victim A normally transfers 452 BSC-USD to user B, user B suddenly receives a 0 dollar transfer from attacker C, and victim A is also forced to transfer 0 dollars to attacker C—this is called “back-and-forth transfers.” It seems harmless but the permissions have been hijacked.

The Two Most Common Attack Patterns

Man-in-the-Middle Attack (MiTM): The most dangerous type. The attacker impersonates your gateway, and all of the victim's traffic is redirected to the attacker's machine.

Denial of Service (DoS): An attacker maps hundreds or even thousands of IPs to a single MAC address, crippling your device or entire network.

How to Save Yourself? Five Protective Measures

1. Static ARP Table: Manually bind MAC and IP, but the management cost is huge.
2. Switch Protection: Use Dynamic ARP Inspection (DAI) to automatically filter suspicious packets.
3. Physical Isolation: Control network access permissions; the attacker must be within your local area network.
4. Network Segmentation: Place important resources in independent secure segments.
5. Encrypted Communication: While it cannot prevent attacks from occurring, it can mitigate the damage.

Bottom Line Recommendations

The wallet should upgrade the risk warning mechanism—users need to see clear ARP threat alerts before making a transfer, rather than finding out they have been scammed afterwards. This wave of attacks is still ongoing, with 94 addresses already exploited; you could be next.