FreeDrain
FreeDrain is an industrial-scale, global cryptocurrency phishing operation focused on stealing wallet seed phrases and draining victims’ digital assets. It has been active since at least 2022, accelerated in mid-2024, and remains active. The operation was documented by Validin and SentinelLABS. FreeDrain targets cryptocurrency users searching for wallet-related terms such as "Trezor wallet balance." It uses SEO manipulation and spamdexing to push malicious lure pages high in search results on Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo. Researchers identified more than 38,000 distinct lure-page subdomains, with pages hosted on trusted free-tier and publishing platforms including GitBook, Webflow, GitHub Pages, Teachable, Strikingly, WordPress.com, Weebly, GoDaddySites, Educator Pages, and Webador. The attack chain typically begins with a search result leading to a lure page that imitates legitimate wallet content and often displays a clickable screenshot of wallet interfaces such as Trezor, MetaMask, or Ledger. Victims are then redirected through one or more intermediary domains to phishing pages that mimic legitimate wallet interfaces and capture seed phrases. FreeDrain uses layered redirection infrastructure with algorithmically generated, English-like .com domains; researchers found that all identified redirector domains were registered through Key-Systems GmbH. The redirector layer may be shared infrastructure used by multiple threat actors or campaigns. Final phishing pages were primarily hosted on Amazon S3 and Azure Web Apps. Researchers observed HTML forms and AJAX POST requests used to exfiltrate stolen seed phrases, including posting to an AWS API Gateway endpoint and, in some cases, backend services on azurewebsites.net. Some Azure-hosted phishing pages included live chat widgets, and researchers confirmed that human operators responded in real time. FreeDrain also uses large-scale comment spam on neglected websites with weak moderation to boost search rankings. Researchers found signs that the operators likely used generative AI to create lure-page content at scale, including artifacts such as "4o mini," and observed extensive text and metadata variation to evade detection. Based on GitHub repository metadata and Webflow publish timestamps, researchers assessed with high confidence that the operators likely work in the UTC+05:30 timezone, probably India, during standard weekday business hours. FreeDrain is described as a criminal operation that has industrialized cryptocurrency theft using sophisticated infrastructure and monetization pipelines.
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Targeting
Who, where, and (when attributed) which flag flies behind the operation. Pulled from open-source reporting and Mallory's analyst review.
Who they target
Sectors the actor has been observed targeting.
- Financial Services
Where they're from
Attributed origin per open-source reporting.
- IN
Tradecraft
9 distinct techniques observed across reporting, grouped by tactic. Hover any cell for the evidence excerpt; click through for MITRE's full description.
Recent activity
4 sources tracked across advisories, community write-ups, and news. New activity surfaces here as Mallory finds it.
Industrial-scale cryptocurrency phishing operation using SEO manipulation and large volumes of subdomains to steal wallet seed phrases.
A criminal operation specializing in industrial-scale cryptocurrency phishing, using SEO manipulation and thousands of malicious subdomains on free-tier publishing platforms to steal digital assets.
Large-scale financially motivated cryptocurrency phishing operation that uses SEO poisoning/spamdexing, lure pages on trusted free-tier publishing platforms, layered redirectors, and cloned wallet phishing pages to steal seed phrases and drain victims' wallets.
FreeDrain is a financially motivated threat actor group operating a large-scale cryptocurrency phishing campaign. They weaponize search engine optimization, free-tier web services, and layered redirection techniques to systematically target and drain cryptocurrency wallets at scale. Their infrastructure leverages thousands of lure pages on reputable platforms, redirectors, and phishing sites to harvest wallet seed phrases and steal digital assets.
The version that knows your environment.
Match sector + geo + tech-stack targeting against your real footprint.
Every observed MITRE ATT&CK technique, grouped by tactic.
Families this actor is known to deploy, with IOCs and behavior.
CVEs this actor has used in known campaigns.
YARA, Sigma, Snort, and vendor rules, auto-deployed to your SIEM.
Domains, IPs, and hashes tied to this actor, refreshed continuously.