Monkey Kingdom, a Solana non-fungible token (NFT) project backed by American DJ Steve Aoki, reported on Twitter on Tuesday that hackers stole $1.3 million from the community’s crypto funds through a security breach on Discord.
No time for vulnerability
The intrusion began with the vulnerability of Grape, a popular method for validating users on Solana, according to its makers.
The exploit was subsequently utilized by hackers to gain control of an administrative account, which then posted a phishing link on the Monkey Kingdom Discord’s announcement channel.
Users that connected their wallets to the URL expecting to get an NFT were instead robbed of their SOL tokens by the scammer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtMMYTx_Jr8
Unfortunately, the attack occurred just as users were preparing for the project’s second release. Sun Wukong, also known as “The Monkey King” in Chinese tradition, is the center of the Monkey Kingdom, which is made up of 2,222 algorithmically created NFTs.
Setting up a compensation fund
All earnings from the first sale of the NFTs were to be donated to a charity of one’s choice, with the goal of assisting Asian communities around the world. It was one of the most successful NFT initiatives to emerge from Asia.
One Twitter user, known only as “commenstar,” claimed to have lost 650 SOL ($120,400) as a result of the hoax.
But it wasn’t all doom and gloom. Monkey Kingdom’s team has set up a compensation fund for victims and is on pace to fully reimburse individuals who have been harmed. The timetable and procedure for disbursing the monies have yet to be revealed.
The crypto business is no stranger to phishing attacks. Scammers have been targeting Discord users and leveraging the site itself to arrange similar NFT attacks over the past year.
Image courtesy of Cointelegraph News/YouTube