His Twitter account was hacked by Mike Winkelmann (better known as Beeple) as part of a phishing scheme.
Harry Denley, a security analyst at MetaMask alerted users to the fact that Beeple’s tweets that contained a link for a raffle of a Louis Vuitton NFT Collaboration were actually phishing scams that would drain crypto from users’ wallets if they clicked.
Beeple’s Twitter account was compromised (ATO), in order to post a fake website to steal funds.
0x7b69c4f2ACF77300025E49DbDbB65B068b2Fda7D
0xF305F6073CFa24f05FF15CA5b387DD91f871b983 pic.twitter.com/0MPNwOPlEu— harry.eth (whg.eth) (@sniko_)
May 22, 2022
These scammers likely wanted to profit from a recent collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Beeple. Beeple had earlier in May designed 30 NFTs to be embedded as rewards for players in the luxury fashion brand’s mobile game “Louis The Game”.
The scammer posted phishing links to Beeple’s Twitter account, leading to fake Beeple collections, tempting unsuspecting users with a promise of a mint for unique NFTs.
Bad actors still have access to Beeples’ Twitter account, and they have also tweeted from another phishing domain.
This one just prompts the user to send ETH to an EOA (0xcad7fc974F61A08ADEF110D1BA446fa5b5B5Bb27).
Infra: 44.227.238.106 pic.twitter.com/HzTga1OvNK
— harry.eth (whg.eth) (@sniko_)
May 22, 2022
Beeple’s Twitter account had phishing links up for about five hours. On-chain analysis of one scammers’ wallets showed that the first phishing hyperlink scored them 36 Ethereum ( ETH), which is approximately $73,000 at the time.
The scammers were able to get the second link for $365,000 in ETH and NFTs. This was from high-value collections like the Mutant Ape Yacht Club and VeeFriends. This brings the total amount of the scammers’ proceeds to $438,000.
On-chain data shows that the fraudster sold the NFTs through OpenSea, and then put their stolen Ethereum into a cryptocurrency mixer to try to conceal the gains.
Beeple tweeted later that he had regained his control and reminded his followers that “anything that seems too good to be true is a F*CKING SCAM.”
We’ll, that was a fun way to get up.
We have now taken control of Twitter after it was hacked. We are grateful to @garyvee for their quick assistance! !
— beeple (@beeple).
May 22, 2022
Related: We need a massive education project to combat hacks and scams
Beeple is the creator of three of the ten most costly NFTs, including the one that sold for $69.3million. This was the highest price ever paid to a single owner. Hackers have made Beeple a target.
A Beeple’s Discord admin account was hacked by scammers. They also promoted a similar fake NFT drop, which led to users losing approximately 38 ETH.
Malwarebytes, a cybersecurity company, released a report earlier this month that highlighted an increase in phishing attempts by scammers trying to cash in on NFT hype. Scammers use fraudulent websites that appear to be legitimate platforms as their most popular tactic, according to Malwarebytes.