What is Address Poisoning?
Address poisoning is a social engineering attack where an attacker sends small transactions from addresses that closely resemble the victim's frequent recipients — hoping the victim will copy the attacker's address from their transaction history by mistake.
WHY IT MATTERS
Blockchain addresses are long hex strings that humans (and agents) often identify by their first and last few characters. Address poisoning exploits this by generating addresses that match these visible portions. The attacker sends a tiny transaction from the lookalike address, planting it in the victim's transaction history.
When the victim next wants to send to their real recipient, they might copy the address from recent transactions — grabbing the poisoned lookalike instead. The funds go to the attacker. This has caused individual losses exceeding $68 million.
AI agents are particularly vulnerable. An agent pulling recipient addresses from transaction history could easily select a poisoned address. Unlike a careful human who might double-check, an agent matching on visible characters could be tricked consistently.
HOW POLICYLAYER USES THIS
PolicyLayer's allowlist prevents address poisoning attacks on agent wallets. By restricting agents to pre-approved recipient addresses, poisoned lookalike addresses are automatically rejected — regardless of how similar they appear in transaction history.