An apparent phishing scam led to the hacking of the Twitter account belonging to digital artist Beeple, where more than $70000 in Ethereum was stolen.
Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, is a popular digital artist who helped drive the mainstream acceptance of NFTs (non-fungible tokens). Beeple’s NFT artwork sold at Christie’s auction house last year for $69.3 million, shattering records in the digital art market.
Beeple’s account briefly shared a phishing link linked to a cryptocurrency wallet called MetaMask, according to the NFT artist and others on Twitter-including Harry Denley, a security expert at MetaMask. By clicking on the link, users’ crypto would be stolen.
In the tweet, Beeple shared a link to a website claiming to be a “raffle” for a Louis Vuitton collaboration (Beeple first worked with Louis Vuitton in 2019). A single Ethereum was drained from people’s wallets once they clicked on the link, according to Denley.
Ethereum
At the time of writing, it’s worth about $2,000 per Ethereum. Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization and the blockchain upon which most NFTs are built.
As of the last check, over $72,165.60 of Ethereum had been stolen by Beeple’s Twitter account, as well as more “sophisticated” scams using the address. Denley said that the fraud had stolen over $50,000 in Ethereum and that the address was also being used for another “sophisticated” scam – $72,165.60 total had been stolen.
Beeple tweeted that his account was back to normal and that “we now have control.” He concluded, “Stay safe out there; anything that sounds too good to be true is a scam.”
There are a lot of scams in the crypto community, especially on Twitter. In March, a phishing scam led to over $1 million in stolen ApeCoins when hackers hacked verified accounts.
Fast facts
- A link to a “raffle” website for Louis Vuitton’s collaboration with the artist was shared in the hacker’s message.
- The NFT raffle for Louis Vuitton’s mobile game “Louis: The Game” was Winkelmann’s collaboration with Louis Vuitton from April.
- A total of US$69 million was raised by the sale of Winkelmann’s 5000 Day project at Christie’s at the beginning of 2021, making NFTs the first mainstream art form to embrace them.
- In the past few months, there have been several hacks on Twitter accounts for public figures and institutions, primarily used to promote phishing links that steal cryptocurrency or NFTs from victims.
- A total of $71,000 has been taken from users in the attack.
- The crypto community is rife with scam campaigns, in which bad actors usually use the image of prominent individuals, such as Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Elon Musk, and Brad Garlinghouse, to offer “giveaways.”
- These entities will often lure victims into sending a small amount in exchange for a significant windfall. They then abscond with the victims’ crypto funds.
- In a report published by Bleeping Computer, threat actors have now used deep fake videos of Tesla Chief and other prominent crypto proponents to advertise a scam that siphons off deposits on the BitVex trading platform. Musk has allegedly created a fraudulent trading platform that promises up to 30% returns on all crypto investments made by users.
- ‘Harry Denley, a crypto expert at cryptocurrency wallet MetaMask, has revealed that signing up for the wallet drains one Ethereum automatically,’ Denley said.
