- NFTs were stolen and subsequently sold; however, some were restored.
- The loss of the NFTs has sparked worries about web 3.0 security.
The NFT marketplace OpenSea has been robbed of hundreds of non-fungible tokens valued at least $1.7 million. On Saturday, between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. EST, 32 users were engaged in a theft that occurred. Devin Finzer, co-founder and CEO of OpenSea, tweeted Saturday that the thefts resulted from a phishing assault in which the impacted users signed a malicious payload from an attacker.
Fake OpenSea emails urging people to move their Ethereum listings to new smart contracts were sent by the attacker to those who were targeted, it has been reported. Because OpenSea is genuinely requesting consumers to move their NFTs from Ethereum’s blockchain to a new smart contract, the emails seem to be genuine to some extent.
Phishing Attacks Prominent Attack Method
NFTs were stolen and subsequently sold; however, some were restored to their original owners and part of the Ethereum that had been obtained from their theft. At the time of the most recent reports, the hacker had $1.7 million in their Ethereum wallet, along with three tokens from the Bored Ape Yacht Club, two Cool Cats, a Doodle, and an Azuki.
In January, it was revealed that hackers were using a weakness in OpenSea to buy NFTs at a discount and then resell them. It was difficult to allow certain users to remove their NFTs from the marketplace and avoid delisting costs while keeping the listing on the API back end for OpenSea.
The loss of the NFTs has sparked worries about web 3.0 security. Phishing attempts, in particular, have been a prominent attack method in the past when NFTs were stolen. However, not all thefts and problems have been caused only by phishing.
