SlowMist: Beware of Solana Wallet Owner Authority Tampering Attack

BlockBeats News, December 3rd. SlowMist Security Team released a security advisory regarding a recent phishing attack incident. A user fell victim to a phishing attack, resulting in the transfer of the account's Owner permission. The user attempted to revoke the authorization but was unable to do so. The user's assets worth over $3 million were stolen, with an additional $2 million worth of assets stored in a DeFi protocol that could not be transferred (currently, this part of the assets worth around $2 million has been successfully rescued with the assistance of the related DeFi protocol). This attack was not the traditional "authorization theft" but rather a replacement of the core permission (Owner permission) by the attacker, rendering the victim unable to transfer funds, revoke authorization, or operate DeFi assets despite the funds "appearing normal" but being beyond their control.

The attacker exploited two counterintuitive scenarios to successfully deceive the user into clicking:

1. Usually, when signing a transaction, the wallet would simulate the execution result of the transaction. If there were any fund changes, it would be displayed on the user interface. However, the attacker's carefully crafted transaction showed no fund changes;

2. In the traditional Ethereum EOA account, the ownership is controlled by the private key. Users subjectively were unaware that Solana has a feature that can modify account ownership.

SlowMist reminds users to be vigilant when authorizing signatures and to confirm whether there are hidden operations such as modifying high-risk permissions like Owner in them.