As if the massive decline in NFTs’ public appeal was not enough, now it seems that various groups of cyber-criminals are launching coordinated attacks on the NFT community to the tune of millions of dollars.
2022 has been a year to forget for NFT investors worldwide. The once-hot digital assets have seen their fortunes take a massive hit over the past few months, with a 47% drop in global sales over the first quarter of the year.
Many experts have now come out to say that rather than signifying a crash in the NFT sector, this decline is merely the market settling down from the unsustainable sales figures of 2021.
However, one thing they cannot brush off so lightly is the increase in incidents of hacking, which seem to be targeting NFT users in particular.
Zeneca Has Had Its Twitter Account Targeted
Although largely unsubstantiated at present, there have been rumors circulating among NFT circles that these hacks could be the beginning of an attempted take-over of the digital assets’ space.
One of the biggest names in NFT, Zeneca, has fallen victim to these attacks, with both its Twitter and Discord accounts being targeted. The compromised accounts were linked to a fake airdrop for the platform’s “Zen Academy Founders Pass.”
Victims of the hack were tricked into linking their wallets to the fraudulent Zeneca offering, but as of now the motives and the impact of the hack are still unknown.
Beady-eyed Twitter users were quick to notice that something was amiss and began flagging the post a few minutes after it appeared on the social media platform. Twitter, to its credit, was very quick to respond.
Just 40 minutes after the hack occurred, Justin Taylor, Twitter’s head of consumer product marketing, was able to lock down the account and minimize the damage.
Attempts to get a comment from Twitter over the incident have been unsuccessful so far. However, this hack joins a long list of similar incidents that have plagued Twitter and Discord communities.
Yuga Labs Issues a Warning
The creator behind the famous Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Yuga Labs, has taken to its Twitter account to issue a warning to the general public over these cyber hacks.
This is not the first time that Yuga Labs has tangled with cybercriminals over this issue of hacking NFT accounts. Just last month, Gordon Goner, one of the co-founders of Yuga labs, warned NFT investors against falling for the “surprise mint” tactic that seems to be favored by hackers as a way to entice unsuspecting social media users.
These usually irresistible offerings made by surprise mints are often too sweet to pass on to NFT investors, which leaves them vulnerable to cyber hacking.
In light of these revelations, Gordon Goner went on to denounce surprise mints and assure the public that Yuga Labs would never participate in such practices.
Premint NFT Website Is the Latest Target
The warnings from Yuga Labs were in response to the latest flurry of attacks on the Premint NFT platform. In what was one the biggest heists of the year, hackers managed to breach the NFT platform, and make off with more than 300 NFTs and ETH valued at $375,000.
Premint currently has more than 12,000 NFT projects on its platform and 2.43 million users, meaning that this hack could have been a lot worse than it was. Investigations by the cyber security firm, Certik, showed that the hackers used a malicious code inserted onto the Premint platform to gain access.
This alien code created pop-ups that asked users to confirm their wallet details, which allowed the hackers to obtain vital user information. Six wallets were compromised in this way, and they contained various NFTs, such as BAYC, Goblintown, and oddities. In response, Premint has made changes to the login process to what is hoped to be a more secure method.
Final Thought
With the increase in hacking incidents across the NFT community, investor confidence has continued to decline. The digital sector had already been plagued with incidents of fraud and thefts of NFTs and this latest wave of attacks will only worsen the situation.