While a dusting attack may not be a direct attack in the conventional sense, its use for potentially tracking a wallet owner's activity in the crypto world could be a breach of their privacy. Cybercriminals often target crypto whales or wallets with extensive crypto holdings with such dusting attacks. Identifying large wallet addresses lets them move on to the next step, such as cyber extortion.
Dusting attacks or sending crypto dust out to multiple wallets is also employed in mass advertising campaigns. In such cases, the crypto dust also includes messages which could reach intended users, potentially spamming them.
Crypto dust could also be sent out by blockchain analytics firms or government law enforcement agencies to track the activity on a blockchain network. Sometimes, such dusting attacks could also be a way of stress testing the network's performance to analyze its throughput and bandwidth.