A dusting attack is a type of malicious activity where a hacker sends small amounts of crypto, called dust, to multiple wallet addresses. The goal of the attack is to track the transactional activity of the wallets that received the dust and to link them to their respective owners.
Dusting attacks are used to break the privacy of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency users and to identify the real identities of the wallet owners. Dusting attacks are also used to deanonymize wallets. Dusting attacks are performed because cryptocurrency users don’t pay much attention to the tiny amounts showing up in their wallet addresses.
The dust is usually sent in untraceable amounts, and the transactions are tracked down by the attackers. If you receive dust, it’s best to not interact with it and to avoid clicking on any links in the transaction. To protect yourself from dusting attacks, you should avoid publishing your wallet addresses publicly and use privacy-focused wallets.