Wednesday saw the latest edition of a Discord-related NFT scandal, which led to a hacker stealing around $790,000 worth of NFTs and crypto from owners of the recently launched Rare Bears collection. The project’s team said the weakened security of its Discord group allowed the perpetrator to gain unauthorised access and pose as an official moderator on the server.
As you’d expect, a phisher posing as an official moderator did not end well, as the unsolicited intruder proceeded to post a phishing link to a website in which PeckShield security firm described as hosting a malicious smart contract that, when interacted with, gave them control over victims’ wallets.
The message that went alongside the link included a fake narrative that claimed there to be 1,000 new and exclusive Rare Bears NFTs added to the collection, each at a mint price of 0.1 ETH ($280).
Despite the efforts of Rare Bears officials to warn its community of the breach of security, the perpetrator was able to run away with over 179 NFTs, including assets from the Rare Bears collection, as well as CloneX, Azuki, mfer, and 3landers.
Crypto assets of the victims were also ceased, which all-in-all, allowed the wrongdoer to run away with 286 ETH ($790,000) when swiftly reselling the assets. Of this amount, 213 ETH was routed through mixing service Tornado Cash, with the remaining 72.3 ETH being sent across three wallets (which are likely to be under the hacker’s control).
Despite Rare Bears’ relatively successful launch of its 2,400 NFTs just a few days before the scandal took place (with its public mint going live on the Sunday), as well as its LAND acquisitions in The Sandbox, the situation can most certainly still be described as a nightmare start for its community, and further, it is a rather explicit reminder to stay vigilant when navigating this sometimes-treacherous space, especially on Discord.
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