In a world that is riddled with scammers and seems obsessed with hacking innocent people and holding their data to ransom for crypto capital, like Costa Rica's healthcare system (opens in new tab), we almost get excited when we hear about malware that intercepts scammers before they can profit from their evil deeds We were almost excited. Unfortunately, it's not all good news.

In a recent post, Trend Micro (opens in new tab) outlines a parasitic threat factor that the company just discovered. It may have been named "Water Labbu" after a mythical creature (opens in new tab) like the Mesopotamian lion and dragon. The other gods stood before it, and Enlil finally sent one to slay the beast, which died after three years, three months, and one day.

The more one knows...

Water Labbu (the malicious actor, not the creature) targeted problematic cryptocurrency scam websites, using social engineering tactics used by many crypto scammers, such as convincing people to hand over their passwords to would-be scam artists used to turn the tables on people.

Infecting a crypto scammer's website under the guise of a distributed application (DApp), they wait for a victim with a flood of crypto wallets to connect to the site. Then, by hiding behind the mask of the DApp, it asks the original scammer for permission to transfer a ridiculous amount of USD Tether (USDT) from the target, while appearing to be no threat in itself.

"If the victim loads the script from a mobile device using Android or iOS," the report notes, "it returns a first-stage script with cryptocurrency theft capabilities. "11] from which the script is loaded returns another script that displays a fake Flash Player update message asking to download a malicious executable file."

The report also states.

If the scammer accepts without properly reading the permissions, the script essentially allows Water Labbu to sidestep the scammer's misdeeds, turning the scammer into a victim and draining the contents of his/her wallet. Trend Micro reports that to date, more than $300,000 has been stolen from at least nine victims through this parasitic method.

And while there's always a part of us that likes to hear about scammers getting their comeuppance, the original victim is still the victim here; we haven't heard of any Water Labbu butlers turning into Robin Hoods and returning money, at least not yet.

Until then, we don't even know if this magnificent Mesopotamian beast deserves its name. It is more like a crypto tapeworm than a mighty, world-destroying dragon that strikes fear into the hearts of even the gods themselves.