Crooks steal NFTs worth '$3m' in Bored Ape Yacht Club heist
(2022/04/26)
- Reference: 1650934806
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/04/26/nft_theft_bored_ape_yacht_club/
- Source link:
Crooks stole non-fungible tokens (NFTs) said to be worth about $3 million after breaking into the Bored Ape Yacht Club's Instagram account and posting a link to a copycat website that sought to harvest marks' assets.
The bogus post promised a free airdrop – basically, a promotional token giveaway – to users who followed the link and connected their MetaMask crypto-asset wallets to the scammer's wallet. Rather than getting free stuff, victims instead had their digital pocketbooks cleaned out.
"It looks like BAYC Instagram was hacked. Do not mint anything, click links, or link your wallet to anything," Bored Ape Yacht Club [1]tweeted Monday morning in a warning that came too late for some of its members.
[2]
Bored Ape Yacht Club, or BAYC, is a [3]collection of pictures that depict passionless primates in various poses and costumes, and can be used as internet profile avatars; they usually sell for thousands of dollars in crypto-coins.
[4]
[5]
Yuga Labs, the outfit that created Bored Ape Yacht Club, told The Register miscreants stole four Bored Apes, six Mutant Apes, and three Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs, plus "assorted other NFTs estimated at a total value of ~$3m."
"We are actively working to establish contact with affected users," a Yuga Labs spokesperson said, adding that its hijacked Instagram account did have two-factor authentication enabled, "and the security practices surrounding the IG account were tight."
[6]
"Yuga Labs and Instagram are currently investigating how the hacker was able to gain access to the account," the spokesperson said.
This is the second breach that the NFT collection has suffered in less than a month. On March 31, Bored Ape Yacht Club [7]confirmed its Discord server had been breached. In this earlier attack, a cybercriminal stole one NFT: Mutant Ape Yacht Club #8662, [8]according to security firm PeckShield.
[9]When the expert speaker at an NFT tech panel goes rogue
[10]Sir Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web NFT fetches $5.4m at auction while rest of us gaze upon source code for $0
[11]WTH are NFTs? Here is the token, there is the Beeple....
[12]Web3 'contains the seeds of a dystopian nightmare' says analyst firm
Also in March, following Bored Ape Yacht Club's ApeCoin [13]cryptocurrency debut , crooks [14]stole about $1.5 million after claiming a large number of tokens using NFTs that they did not initially own and pulling off fraudulent flash loans. Flash loans are awarded and paid back in a single blockchain transaction – it can take just seconds to get the money and return it.
These and other recent attacks highlight the growing security concerns around NFT and cryptocurrency technologies.
In research [15]published Monday, Check Point's threat hunters detailed a flaw they found in the browser version of the Ever Surf cryptocurrency wallet. If exploited, this could have given thieves full control over a targeted user's wallet, the security shop explained.
[16]
And earlier this month, criminals [17]exploited a now-fixed design flaw in the Rarible marketplace to steal an NFT from Taiwanese singer and actor Jay Chou. The miscreants then sold it for about $500,000. ®
Get our [18]Tech Resources
[1] https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1518590210686308354
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YmduagJw9LpLFLvWqhVapQAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YmduagJw9LpLFLvWqhVapQAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YmduagJw9LpLFLvWqhVapQAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YmduagJw9LpLFLvWqhVapQAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1509770607759540229
[8] https://twitter.com/PeckShieldAlert/status/1509768799033393155
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/16/something_for_the_weekend/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/world_wide_web_nft_auction/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/04/what_is_nft/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/forrester_web3_criticism/
[13] https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1504202508633362436
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/28/in_brief_security/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/25/ever-surf-wallet-vulnerability/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YmduagJw9LpLFLvWqhVapQAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/15/rarible-flaw-nft/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
The bogus post promised a free airdrop – basically, a promotional token giveaway – to users who followed the link and connected their MetaMask crypto-asset wallets to the scammer's wallet. Rather than getting free stuff, victims instead had their digital pocketbooks cleaned out.
"It looks like BAYC Instagram was hacked. Do not mint anything, click links, or link your wallet to anything," Bored Ape Yacht Club [1]tweeted Monday morning in a warning that came too late for some of its members.
[2]
Bored Ape Yacht Club, or BAYC, is a [3]collection of pictures that depict passionless primates in various poses and costumes, and can be used as internet profile avatars; they usually sell for thousands of dollars in crypto-coins.
[4]
[5]
Yuga Labs, the outfit that created Bored Ape Yacht Club, told The Register miscreants stole four Bored Apes, six Mutant Apes, and three Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs, plus "assorted other NFTs estimated at a total value of ~$3m."
"We are actively working to establish contact with affected users," a Yuga Labs spokesperson said, adding that its hijacked Instagram account did have two-factor authentication enabled, "and the security practices surrounding the IG account were tight."
[6]
"Yuga Labs and Instagram are currently investigating how the hacker was able to gain access to the account," the spokesperson said.
This is the second breach that the NFT collection has suffered in less than a month. On March 31, Bored Ape Yacht Club [7]confirmed its Discord server had been breached. In this earlier attack, a cybercriminal stole one NFT: Mutant Ape Yacht Club #8662, [8]according to security firm PeckShield.
[9]When the expert speaker at an NFT tech panel goes rogue
[10]Sir Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web NFT fetches $5.4m at auction while rest of us gaze upon source code for $0
[11]WTH are NFTs? Here is the token, there is the Beeple....
[12]Web3 'contains the seeds of a dystopian nightmare' says analyst firm
Also in March, following Bored Ape Yacht Club's ApeCoin [13]cryptocurrency debut , crooks [14]stole about $1.5 million after claiming a large number of tokens using NFTs that they did not initially own and pulling off fraudulent flash loans. Flash loans are awarded and paid back in a single blockchain transaction – it can take just seconds to get the money and return it.
These and other recent attacks highlight the growing security concerns around NFT and cryptocurrency technologies.
In research [15]published Monday, Check Point's threat hunters detailed a flaw they found in the browser version of the Ever Surf cryptocurrency wallet. If exploited, this could have given thieves full control over a targeted user's wallet, the security shop explained.
[16]
And earlier this month, criminals [17]exploited a now-fixed design flaw in the Rarible marketplace to steal an NFT from Taiwanese singer and actor Jay Chou. The miscreants then sold it for about $500,000. ®
Get our [18]Tech Resources
[1] https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1518590210686308354
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YmduagJw9LpLFLvWqhVapQAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://opensea.io/collection/boredapeyachtclub
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YmduagJw9LpLFLvWqhVapQAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YmduagJw9LpLFLvWqhVapQAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YmduagJw9LpLFLvWqhVapQAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1509770607759540229
[8] https://twitter.com/PeckShieldAlert/status/1509768799033393155
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/16/something_for_the_weekend/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/01/world_wide_web_nft_auction/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/04/what_is_nft/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/01/forrester_web3_criticism/
[13] https://twitter.com/BoredApeYC/status/1504202508633362436
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/28/in_brief_security/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/25/ever-surf-wallet-vulnerability/
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_security/cybercrime&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YmduagJw9LpLFLvWqhVapQAAAJg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/15/rarible-flaw-nft/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Let me get this straight…
Winkypop
No.
On the other hand, don’t bother.
Said this before, I'll say it again.
Mayday
Why? Is the first thing. I'm completely lost on the attraction to NFTs. If you're intp art (for example) then you are seeing the value in the artist's skill and expressionism, and your own tastes of course. Similarly with a baseball card or some other tangible piece which you can hold in your hand. With these you can secure them as you see fit, in your gallery, safe, or behind a locked door. Way too much risk with these "assets" to theft and the like too.
NFTs = No Fucking Thanks.
Bits
So some crooks stole some random bits which some random idiots had paid $3m for.
There's a whole lot of nothing to see here.