KU Leuven, Belgium’s largest and highest-ranked research university, has discovered structural flaws linking user identity to on-chain crypto assets.

Crypto Wallet Extensions Leaking Private Data

According to a recent publication, the study found that 85 popular browser wallet extensions leaked unique user data to third-party trackers and RPC providers (bridges that connect wallets to decentralized protocols). This enabled the trackers to map over 35 million users’ activities and IP addresses to their associated wallet addresses.

Even more, most of these wallets failed to revoke address permission even after users logged out or cleared session data. All this created a highly specific blueprint for targeted phishing and extortion.