Bored Ape Yacht Club Social Media Hack - $2.4 Million in NFTs Stolen

over 2 years ago

I don't even really know how to start this post... But BAYC's social Instagram was hacked along with their Discord.

$2.4 Million NFT heist

Earlier today, it seems that the Instagram and Discord accounts for the Bored Ape Yacht Club were compromised. How it was pulled of has yet to be determined but I have written about these types of hacks in the past. I assume it was some kind of phishing or social engineering attack, not an actual hack but I honestly don't know. According to the official Instagram account, the account had 2-factor authentication enabled (probably just SMS if I had to guess lol) and security around the account "followed best practices".

Despite being secured by 2-factor authentication and supposedly following best security practices, the account was compromised. The bad actor was able to gain access to the account long enough to post a phishing link that was supposedly to claim a free airdrop. This link took users to a website that prompted them to connect their wallets in order to receive a free airdrop of land in the upcoming metaverse.

What really happened was the unfortunate people that clicked the link and connected their wallets... Automatically had their NFTs siphoned out of their wallets to the hacker's wallet which you can view on Etherscan here. Just have a scroll through the ERC-721 token transfers and you'll quickly see that tons of high value NFTs were siphoned into the wallet.

Normally I would laugh at the people dumb enough to click a random ass link and connect their wallet. The issue here is that these links were posted via the official social media accounts for one of the most sought after NFT projects that exist. So yeah, I actually do feel bad for the people that had their high value NFTs stolen. I sincerely hope that Yuga Labs makes them whole and at least offers compensation for their losses.

Immediately, the NFT started being sold and the hacker wallet transferred 761 WETH to a fresh wallet, that then started moving funds to exchanges. That's a whopping $2,289,849 in free money for some piece of shit that took advantage of a community. The blockchain doesn't lie though, so it's very traceable.

The funds were transferred multiple times and eventually ended up in a wallet holding over 1,000 ETH. 1,461 to be exact, which is over $4 million and if you look at the comments on Etherscan, everyone tags the wallet as a scammer.

Take a look at the hacker's wallet for yourself. I assume it's the same person (or group) since a ton of ETH was transferred from the phishing wallet people interacted with. I'm no detective though, so I can only make educated guesses. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to look at the hacker's wallet on Etherscan though, which can tell you a lot about what's happening here.

This wallet seems to be the landing wallet for multiple scams and hacks. Whoever controls it has a shitload of money and should be arrested for scamming and hacking. Unfortunately, this kind of thing is going to happen in a highly unregulated space... It happens in the real world every day right under the noses of law enforcement. Why wouldn't it happen where no regulators have decided to step in?

Don't click links, even when they're shared from official social media accounts. Remember, don't trust. Verify.

Be safe out there, frens.

Thanks for reading! Much love.

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