Attackers drove 63% of early use of Ethereum's new smart wallet feature

A CryptoSlate article says a peer-reviewed USENIX Security '26 study found attackers were responsible for 63% of early EIP-7702 authorization transactions on Ethereum and related chains, highlighting a major security risk in Ethereum’s new smart-wallet delegation model. The research tracked 3.66 million authorizations across seven chains and linked 924 malicious contracts to repeated abuse, with $2.36 million in realized losses and about $10.14 million in potential exposure from legacy assumptions that no longer hold. The piece underscores that EIP-7702 can make wallets more powerful but also expands the attack surface, especially if wallets fail to clearly vet delegation targets or monitor changes over time. While the findings are retrospective and not a measure of current attack rates, they reinforce the need for stricter wallet safeguards, whitelist-based delegation, and clearer user prompts.