On June 4, 2022, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) Discord servers were compromised and a phishing scam targeted BAYC, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), and other non-fungible token (NFT) collectors holding NFTs . According to analysis by Web3 and blockchain auditing and security firm Certik, the BAYC Discord server attacker may have been involved in previous phishing attacks.
Blockchain Security Firm Certik Analyzes BAYC Discord Phishing Attack
While many NFTs are very expensive, this makes them more worthwhile for malicious attackers to steal. This week the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) Discord server was broken and an attacker used phishing scams to lure victims.
Web3 and blockchain auditing and security firm Certik published an analysis of the attack and from the company’s account, the attacker may have been involved in previous phishing attempts. The attack took place on Saturday and a total of 32 NFTs worth approximately $360K were stolen from blue-chip NFT holders.
NFT theft stemming from NFTs from Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Bored Ape Kennel Club (BAKC), Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) and other deed collections. Certik’s report said the phishing site was “a carbon copy of the official project website, yet with subtle differences.”
There was no social media link to the site and a tab titled “claim to free land” was added. After some victims were affected by phony phishing ads, the attacker obtained several NFTs and then proceeded to sell them.
The attackers managed to obtain 142 Ether and cert notes, it is likely that 100 ETH was sent to the mixing application Tornado Cache. Certik summarizes that the researchers believe some evidence suggests that a fraction of the ether acquired by the hacker was sent to the Tornado cache and possibly to an address.
“While it is impossible to be sure that 99.5 ETH cashed by 0x2917… are the funds associated with today’s attack, it is certainly possible that these stolen funds are post mixer due to 20.5 ETH being sent to the depositor’s address. ,” Certik’s report comments.
Certik adds the researcher’s analysis:
Most of the money was sent to [Externally Owned Account (EOA)] 0x5bC1…, where they live at the time of writing.
The blockchain security firm says the links indicate that 0x5bC1 is “linked not only to today’s BAYC phishing attack, but to past phishing attacks as well.” The company mentioned the fact that BAYC was targeted on April 25, 2022, when an attacker compromised the Instagram account of the NFT archive.
At the time, the hacker got away with 888 Ether worth of non-fungible tokens by posting a scam link to a fake airdrop. Certik’s report concludes, “Users were prompted to sign a ‘safeTransferFrom’ transaction.” On the first day of April, before the Instagram exploit in late April, Mutant Ape Yacht Club #8,662 was stolen via a phishing scam posted on the Discord channel. Celebrity Seth Greene recently became the victim of a phishing attack and lost his bored monkey to the scam. Bored ep #8,398 called “Fred” was supposed to play a role in Green’s new series “White Horse Tavern”.
What do you think about the recent BAYC phishing scam? Let us know what you think about this topic in the comment section below.
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