Author of the news: Crypto Emergency

A sharp decline in fees on the Ethereum network after the December Fusaka update has led not only to an increase in activity but also to a new wave of fraudulent attacks. Experts link the record number of transactions not to organic growth in network usage but to the activation of criminals, for whom it has become significantly cheaper to conduct mass spam operations.

Scammers have become active: dozens of users have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars
On February 17, 2026, another victim of the address poisoning scheme lost $600,000, just a week after a similar case involving a loss of $350,000. Researchers at SpecterAnalyst note that the attackers substitute addresses, creating almost identical variants — the first and last characters match, which misleads users.

In one case, the victim even sent a test transaction of $12 to the correct address, but 30 minutes later, among numerous fake incoming transactions, accidentally selected a malicious address and transferred the entire amount to the scammers.

Why the Ethereum Fusaka update became a catalyst for attacks
Before the Fusaka update, mass fraudulent mailings were too expensive — the high fees made such schemes unprofitable. However, after the decrease in transaction costs by about 6 times, the situation changed:

• the average fee fell to $0.15;
• the daily number of transactions approached 2.5 million — nearly a record;
• most new transactions cost less than $1, which is typical for fraudulent campaigns.

Citi analysts confirm: a significant part of the activity is not a rise in real usage, but a consequence of cheap attacks.

The increase in activity is not always a positive signal
Some experts, including analysts at Standard Chartered, perceived the rise in transactions as a positive trend and even stated that '2026 will be the year of Ethereum.' However, independent researcher Andrei Sergeenkov conducted a data analysis and found:

• 80% of the increase in activity is related to stablecoins;
• hundreds of thousands of transactions are involved in fraudulent schemes;
• the real growth in network usage is greatly overestimated.

According to him, technological progress without adequate user protection creates new vulnerabilities:

"It is impossible to scale infrastructure without addressing user security issues."

How to protect yourself from address poisoning attacks
Experts recommend several simple but effective measures:

1. Check the address completely, not just the first and last characters. This is the main way to avoid substitution.
2. Do not copy addresses from transaction history or block explorers. Use only pre-saved contacts in your wallet.
3. Make a test transaction. But it is important to ensure that the subsequent sending goes to the same address, not to a substituted one.
4. Ignore unexpected incoming transactions. They are often used to mask malicious addresses.

Conclusion
• The decrease in fees in Ethereum has made fraudulent attacks cheaper and more widespread.
• User losses are already in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• Up to 80% of the increase in network activity may be related to fraudulent schemes.
• Users need to increase vigilance and follow basic security measures.

#Ethereum #ETH #CryptoSecurity #ScamAlert