2026-01-15 19:27:21

Interesting Security Discovery: A cybersecurity research organization recently exposed a ransomware variant called DeadLock, which has come up with a new trick—using smart contracts on the Polygon blockchain to hide its true identity.

Traditional ransomware usually relies on hard-coded command and control servers, which are easy to expose. But this DeadLock is quite ruthless; it instead uses smart contracts on the Polygon chain to issue commands and interact, effectively hiding C2 communications within the blockchain. As a result, conventional cybersecurity defenses become less effective—it's hard to determine whether the interactions are normal blockchain activity or malicious commands.

This reflects a phenomenon: as the Web3 ecosystem prospers, attackers are continuously upgrading their methods. Polygon, as a mainstream layer-2 scaling solution with massive usage, has become a testing ground for new threats. For exchanges, wallets, and DeFi projects, strengthening monitoring of abnormal on-chain contract behavior is becoming increasingly important.

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DataBartender

· 4h ago

Wow, the attacker actually wrote ransomware into the smart contract? That's really impressive, it makes on-chain defense seem useless. Using Polygon as a testing ground is really risky; we need to strengthen monitoring, right? This batch of hackers is getting more and more intense; traditional methods are no longer enough. DeadLock is a very fitting name; it really locks people down. The price of Web3's prosperity is that threats are also escalating; it always feels hard to defend against everything. The on-chain anonymity trick must be a big challenge for exchanges, right? In the future, we need to be even more cautious of these invisible contract instructions; they're too hard to judge. That's why on-chain security is becoming more and more important; we can't just focus on making money.

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EternalMiner

· 4h ago

Oh no, Polygon is under fire again. Now we need to carefully review on-chain contracts. --- DeadLock's move is truly brilliant, hiding C2 directly on the chain—who would have thought? --- So now even ransomware has to learn to use smart contracts? Web3 really can do everything. --- Exchanges and wallets need to step up monitoring quickly, or one day assets could be hacked without warning. --- This is outrageous; defense methods can't even distinguish between normal interactions and malicious commands. Too sneaky. --- The more Polygon is used, the easier it is to be targeted—being passive also makes you a target. --- Attackers are evolving faster than security teams. It's a bit overwhelming, brother.

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RugResistant

· 4h ago

deadlock using polygon contracts as c2? analyzed thoroughly and ngl, this is exactly the kind of red flags detected i've been warning about. unsafe implementation patterns spreading fast through defi.

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