A member of the Proof Collective fell victim to a scam and lost 29 high-value Ethereum-based Moonbirds. According to a tweet from Cirrus on Wednesday morning, the victim lost 29 Moonbirds non-fungible tokens (NFTs), worth $1.5 million, by clicking on a malicious link shared by the scammer.
29 Moonbirds were just stolen in a hack.
Lost 750 ETH (~$1.5 million) due to clicking a malicious link.
It's disgusting to see something like this. Let this remind you never to click on a link or bookmark a market or trading site you use.
— Cirrus (@CirrusNFT) May 25, 2022
Another user, Just1n.eth, claimed that when he was trying to negotiate a deal, a trader insisted on using a bad "p2p" platform to complete the deal. Sulphaxyz confirmed that this happened to him too, and confirmed that the scammer is the same.
It’s unclear how many total victims the culprit defrauded, but it’s a stark reminder that even the savviest NFT investor needs to be vigilant when encountering scammers. The recent crypto scams are a stark wake-up call for NFT owners to exercise caution when dealing with third-party platforms and to double-check any information others share, even if it appears trustworthy.
Cointelegraph recently reported that the Twitter account of NFT creator Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) was hit by a phishing attack. The scam allowed attackers to earn $438,000 in cryptocurrencies and NFTs from Beeple accounts.
Earlier this month, cybersecurity firm Malwarebytes released research highlighting the rise in phishing attempts as scammers try to capitalize on the NFT craze. According to the company, the most common method used by scammers is to use fraudulent websites to masquerade as genuine platforms.