🚨 Crypto Investors Beware: Sophisticated Fake GitHub Trading Bot Emptying Solana Wallets in 2025

Another day, another 'can't-miss' crypto opportunity draining wallets faster than a hedge fund manager's morals.

The Bait: A shiny new GitHub trading bot promising Solana gains—too good to be true? Obviously.

The Hook: Malicious code masquerading as open-source brilliance, siphoning SOL while victims sleep.

The Lesson: If it's printing money, it's printing your private keys. DYOR before your wallet gets a forced 'redistribution event.'

Beware! A new crypto scam is making the rounds and this time, it’s hiding in plain sight on GitHub.

Cybersecurity firm SlowMist has issued a warning after a user lost their crypto assets by downloading what looked like a legitimate solana trading bot. The project, called “solana-pumpfun-bot”, claimed to help users trade tokens on Pump.fun, a popular platform in the Solana ecosystem. But instead, it drained the user’s wallet.

Here’s everything you need to know to stay safe. 

Innocent Bot With a Dangerous Twist

The user downloaded the open-source bot from GitHub, ran it, and shortly after, their wallet was emptied. At first glance, the project looked normal. It had stars, forks, and even recent commits. 

The project was a Node.js app that included a hidden dependency – a package linked from a custom GitHub URL instead of the official NPM registry. This let the malicious package bypass NPM’s security checks, making it harder to detect.

Once installed, the code scanned the victim’s system for wallet data and sent their private keys to a remote server controlled by the attacker.

GitHub Popularity Was Faked to Build Trust

To make it look safe, the attacker used fake GitHub accounts to star and fork the project, giving it the appearance of being widely used. But according to SlowMist, the entire codebase had been uploaded just three weeks ago, which was a clear sign that something was off.

In a tweet, SlowMist explained:

“The perpetrator disguised a malicious program as a legit open-source project… users unknowingly ran a Node.js project with embedded malicious dependencies, exposing their private keys and losing assets.”

On July 2, a victim reached out to the SlowMist team after losing crypto assets. The cause? Running a seemingly legitimate GitHub project — zldp2002/solana-pumpfun-bot.

What looked SAFE turned out to be a cleverly disguised trap.

Our analysis revealed:

1⃣The perpetrator… pic.twitter.com/UkbVLf7owk

Important Warning for Devs and Traders

SlowMist has advised users to never blindly trust GitHub projects, especially those that require wallet access or deal with private keys. If you need to test tools like this, do it in a sandboxed environment and not with your real assets.

“If you must test them, do so in a sandboxed, isolated environment with no sensitive data,” the team warned.

Why This Matters

As more traders and developers rely on open-source tools in the crypto space, attacks like this are becoming harder to spot. 

The takeaway is simple: if a GitHub project deals with your wallet, treat it like it’s high-risk!