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OpenSea investigates phishing attack as CEO quells rumours on Twitter

OpenSea investigates phishing attack as CEO quells rumours on Twitter

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NFT marketplace, OpenSea has launched an investigation for a phishing attack which co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer said no longer appears to be active. He also quelled rumours that this was a US$200 million hack. 

In a series of tweets, Finzer explained that the company does not believe the attack is connected to the OpenSea website. "It appears 32 users thus far have signed a malicious payload from an attacker, and some of their NFTs were stolen," he added.

https://twitter.com/dfinzer/status/1495245308812402688

According to him, the attack did not appear to be active at that point and some of the NFTs have also been returned. "We are not aware of any recent phishing emails that have been sent to users, but at this time we do not know which website was tricking users into maliciously signing messages," Finzer tweeted. He also urged users to double-check that they are interacting with opensea.io on their browser when they sign messages.

"Importantly, rumours that this was a US$200 million hack are false. The attacker has US$1.7 million of Ethereum in his wallet from selling some of the stolen NFTs," Finzer said. MARKETING-INTERACTIVE has reached out to OpenSea for comment.

https://twitter.com/dfinzer/status/1495273300876042240

Over the past year, NFTs have surged in popularity. In fact, brands, artists and organisations alike have taken a play to ride the NFT wave, as an attempt into the metaverse. This year alone, brands such as Gucci, Alibaba and Castify have released an NFT collection. The International Olympic Committee also took a play at the NFT hype with its  "Olympic Games Jam: Beijing 2022" mobile game earlier this month. 

The digital space is rife with scams nowadays and NFTs, as well as the metaverse, have not been spared. According to the Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Centre (HKCERT), a government-run cybersecurity watchdog, NFTs and the metaverse are among the key security threats that consumers should keep an eye on this year. According to South China Morning Post, HKCERT managed 7,725 information security incidents in 2021, with 48% of them being phishing scams. This was a 7% increase from 2020.

HKCERT also warned in a blog post that hackers can imitate the promotions of NFT platforms and distribute fake NFT assets for free, thereby tricking victims into providing sensitive information. At the same time, hackers can also set up NFT phishing websites to trick user and steal account passwords, and exploit the security vulnerabilities of platforms to invade users' account and transfer users' assets away.

Photo courtesy: 123RF

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