Cyber fraudsters took temporary control of Beeple’s Twitter account and siphoned more than $70K worth of ETH with it on Sunday. Multiple NFT artists confirmed the incident, while Harry Denley tweeted screenshots to provide more details about the incident.
Details About The Incident
Denley is a Metamask crypto security expert; he explained that anyone who clicks on the link would lose at least 1ETH from his crypto wallet. The website’s content from the phishing link is a raffle draw to win a Louis Vuitton fashion item.
Many wouldn’t have suspected foul play since Beeple, and the popular fashion brand collaborated three years ago.
It shouldn’t be surprising that most NFT transactions are settled with ETH. Most NFTs are built on the Ethereum blockchain. Also, ETH remains the second-biggest digital asset behind BTC. The latest Coinmarketcap data shows that ETH currently trades at $2,063.
The Metamask security expert further said the hackers had stolen more than $59K worth of ETH. Then, he added that they still plan to coordinate an even bigger scam through the hacked Beeple Twitter account.
As of the last check by Decrypt crypto media outlet, there has been over $72K in the crypto wallet receiving the stolen funds. Nearly four hours after Denley’s tweet of the hack, Beeple tweeted from the same account that their team had restored normalcy to the account. It also advised that people stay away from anything that looks too good to be true
Famous digital creator, Mike Winkelmann, is the name behind the Beeple NFT brand. Many other NFT creators regard him as one of the fathers of the NFT industry.
The sale of one of his NFTs pushed the NFT sector into the limelight last year. Winkelmann’s NFT sold for $69.4M on Christie’s. That amount beat the sales record of other NFTs globally.
NFT Scam Rates Soar By Over 665% This Year Alone – Study
Twitter is the most used social platform for crypto scams. Two months ago, hackers took control of several verified Twitter accounts to promote a bogus Apecoin airdrop. Multiple reports indicate that the hackers stole more than $1m from that phishing scam.
A Top10VPN study states that the top five hacks in the NFT history occurred this year. The total losses from these top five hacks are $41.7M, with Lumpo (an NFT sports platform) losing $18.7M to hackers.
The study also indicated that digital art creators had lost nearly $52M to hackers since this year. The amount is $45M more than the whole amount digital creators lost to hackers last year.
The stats show that regulators would need to make concerted efforts to curb the activities of these fraudsters. If their actions can reduce the activities of these fraudsters, many persons will become more interested in investing in the crypto space.
Also Read: What Should Wry Investors Amidst Imminent Crypto Winter
