The Bored Ape Yacht Club has been hacked again by a phishing scam that allowed thieves to steal more than a quarter million dollars worth of NFTs, reports say.
A manager account from the firm and and Otherside Metaverse was compromised this week, allowing hackers to access their accounts, CoinGape reported.
Once inside the scammers sent out phishing links posed as ‘exclusive giveaways’ for the NFT fans, stealing 145 Ethereum, which is about $257,515.65.
It comes just over a month after the group lost $3million from another set of scammers.
Pictured, the phishing scam that was sent out to members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Otherside Metaverse discord groups
The scam allegedly made off with about 145 Ethereum, which is about $257,515.65
Bored Ape Yacht Club focuses on buying and selling Bored Ape NFTs (pictured, one previously sold). The group had been targeted by thieves last month who made off with $3million
Data from PeckShield, a blockchain security firm, revealed that a total of 32 NFTs were stolen by Saturday, including one Bored Ape Yacht Club token, two Mutant Apes NFTs, Five Otherside NFTs and one Bored Ape Kennel Club token through the phishing attack.
NFTs, or Non-Fungible Tokens, are bitcoin-like digital tokens that act like a certificate of ownership, and live on a blockchain.
The scam was reportedly sent out through the account of a manager with the username BorisVagner, who enticed members of the discord groups with free tokens.
The breach comes more than a month after the Bored Ape Yacht Club, the biggest player in the NFT game, suffered major hacks in April, making off with four Bored Apes and a slew of other NFTs that totaled $3million.
Seth Green has created an animated show, in which a Bored Ape cartoon character works at a real Manhattan bar, White Horse Tavern, in the West Village
Hackers had targeted the group’s Instagram account and sent phishing links to members, who unknowing clicked on the posts and lost their valuable NFTs, The Guardian reported.
Jacke Moore, a global cybersecurity adviser, said that while Instagram attacks are nothing new, the close community over the Bored Ape NFTs can allow phishing scams to have devastating success.
‘This takeover has had a huge consequence and resulted in a mass robbery of digital assets,’ More told the Guardian regarding the April hack.
‘Similar to when physical art is stolen, there will be questions over how they would now be able to sell on these assets, but the problems in NFTs still prevail and users must remain extremely cautious of this still very new technology.’
Confidence in the Boared Ape Yacht Club continues to shake after Actor Seth Green fell for another scam where the copyright of his Bored Ape NFT that was set to be used for an upcoming TV show was stolen from him.
The actor, 48, was set to use a cartoon version of the NFT, Fed Simian, for his new cartoon, White Horse Tavern.
It features the real bar in Manhattan’s West Village, and imagines one of the bartenders is Fred Simian, who is part of an NFT collective called Bored Ape Yacht Club.
The character which Green bought is animated, and interacts with real actors in the 1880s bar.
But now production on the show has ground to a halt, after the lead character was ‘kidnapped’.
Green announced on May 17 that the character had been stolen. He has pleaded for its return on social media, and also insisted that he can still broadcast the show, because Fred Simian was stolen and copyright rules do not apply.
But Fred was sold on using cryptocurrency – a totally unregulated market – meaning the NFT’s unidentified new owner could well exercise a copyright claim if a likeness of Fred is broadcast without permission.
