Popular digital artist Beeple saw his Twitter Inc account hacked over the weekend, resulting in a phishing incident that netted scammers over $430,000 in stolen Ethereum and NFTs.
What Happened
MetaMask security analyst Harry Denley first raised the alarm on Sunday, telling users the link in Beeple’s Twitter bio redirected to a phishing website that would automatically drain user wallets once they had been connected.On-chain data shows that the first link posted earned the scammers a total of 36 ETH worth around $73,000. The second link resulted in an even bigger jackpot—a cumulative total of over $365,000 in ETH and big-ticket NFTs including Mutant Apes and Otherdeeds.
The NFTs were then sold on OpenSea and the ETH was put into a coin mixer by scammers attempting to launder the illicitly obtained funds.
Beeple, whose real name is Michael Joseph Winkelmann, has had some of the most successful NFT sales to date and is widely credited for bringing the industry more mainstream attention. The digital artist sold his ‘The First 5000 Days’ NFT for a record $69 million last year.
By Samyuktha Sriram
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