February 22, 2022
By Tiasha Chatterjee
OpenSea, the largest NFT (non-fungible token) trading platform in the world, has confirmed on Sunday (Feb 20) that it has been hit by a phishing attack. At least 32 users have lost their valuables due to it, amounting to NFT worth $1.7 million.
Here’s what we know so far:
- Opensea CEO and Co-founder Devin Finzer has acknowledged this phishing attack, and confirmed that so far there are a total of 32 users who have lost their NFTs. However, he said that the rumors saying that the hack amounted to $200 million are false, and the attacker “has $1.7 million of ETH (Ethereum) in his wallet from selling some of the stolen NFTs.”
- The NFT marketplace has not yet completely figured out the magnanimity of the attack. Peckshield, a Blockchain investigator, expressed his suspicions on a possible leak of user information, which also includes their email ids, which was the basis of the phishing attack.
- “We are actively investigating rumours of an exploit associated with OpenSea related smart contracts. This appears to be a phishing attack originating outside of OpenSea’s website,” OpenSea posted in a recent tweet.
- The hack is supposed to be an outcome of OpenSea’s recent announcement of a new smart contract upgrade, which gave a one-week deadline to unlist NFTs which are inactive in the platform. This contract required users to move their listed NFTs from the existing ETH blockchain to another new smart contract.
- Soon after this announcement was made by OpenSea, reports started to emerge from multiple sources about an ongoing attack that targets NFTs that are soon going to be delisted. “We don’t believe it’s connected to the OpenSea website. It appears 32 users so far have signed a malicious payload from an attacker, and some of their NFTs were stolen,” Finzer posted. He has also requested the victim users to directly message him on Twitter.
- This phishing attack on the NFT marketplace took place a week after the UK tax authorities seized three NFTs as a part of a fraud case, which amounted to 1.4 million pounds, and was the first case of a UK law enforcement seizing an NFT.
About the author
Tiasha Chatterjee is a content writer with a great curiosity to learn about new things. Combining this curiosity with her interest in the English language, she loves to write about different subjects, including blockchain. When not writing, you’ll find her surrounded by her cats, soaking up another book.
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