Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) developers Monday fell victim to a phishing scam. Attackers gained access to the popular nonfungible token (NFT) collection’s official Instagram page and distributed links to a fake airdrop to the project’s followers.
The attempt appears to have been timed to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the BAYC collection’s launch, improving the “perceived credibility” of the phishing link.
Crypto fans who linked their MetaMask wallets to the bogus website had their Ape NFTs drained.
NFTs stolen in Bored Ape Yacht Club phishing attack
The hacker behind the attack took 133 NFTs after using BAYC’s Instagram account to promote a bogus “airdrop,” according to a screenshot posted by The Block. Essentially, the scheme promised customers free tokens if they connected their MetaMask wallets to the site linked through the post.
If the reports are true, the attack resulted in the loss of more than $40 million in assets. However, because the figures are based on the floor price, they may only represent the lower end of the estimate.
It’s unknown how the hacker gained access to BAYC’s Instagram account, and designer Yuga Labs has yet to say whether the users will be compensated.
Not so foolproof
It is unknown at the time of writing how hackers got access to BAYC’s official Instagram account. While some social media users emphasise the necessity of two-factor authentication as an effective barrier against illegal log-ins, others argue that such systems are not completely foolproof and can be defeated by a SIM-card swap.
The Verge points out that what likely made this most recent fraud particularly effective is that it came not just from the official Bored Ape Instagram account, but also that MetaMask presently only allows users to visibly see their NFTs within its mobile app.
BAYC has risen to become one of the most popular NFT collections in the crypto world, with sales exceeding $1 billion in 2021. The supply of NFTs in the collection is set at 10,000. In the last 30 days, more than 38,748 ETH worth of Apes were traded on OpenSea.