- Artist Beeple’s Twitter account was hacked and used to promote a crypto phishing scam.
- Harry Denley, a security expert at MetaMask, reported that the Beeple account had temporarily shared a phishing link.
- The hackers pinned a Tweet pretending that Beeple was working with Louis Vuitton to deliver 1,000 non-fungible tokens.
On Sunday, May 22, the Twitter account of Beeple, digital artist widely recognized, was hacked and, from there, the hackers were promoting a cryptocurrency scam that, of course, he used the technique of phishing.
As usually happens in these cases, the crypto community on Twitter began to warn of what was happening.
In the crypto ecosystem, all users must be 100% alert to possible phishing attacks at all times. They should never let their guard down! And it is that they must suspect everyone, even the accounts of people they admire because they could have been hacked.
Beeple x Louis Vuitton?
One of the users who disclosed the scam was Harry Denley, MetaMask security expert, reported through his Twitter account (@Harry.ETH) that the Beeple account had temporarily shared a phishing link.
Basically, hackers pinned a Tweet pretending Beeple was working with Louis Vuitton to deliver 1,000 non-fungible tokens (NFT), and of course, they invited users to click on a link, through which, as soon as a user clicked on the link, the assets were automatically drained from their wallets. However, they did not stop there.
According to Denley, the hackers posted another Tweet where a Phishing domain was found. Apparently, it was an even more sophisticated strategy.
stolen funds
According to Denley, as of yesterday, the scam had already stolen roughly 25 ETH, or $50,000 US dollars.
Denley’s warnings don’t seem to have come fast enough because, until on May 23, hackers are estimated to have already stolen 36 ETH, roughly $72k US dollars. This information is available on Etherscan using the wallet addresses reported by Denley.
As expected, the funds were sent to Tornado Cash to cover their tracks. In fact, one of the wallets no longer have funds and the other he only has 0.236 ETH.
An element to take into account is that the Beeple account is followed by 673 thousand people. Consequently, this type of phishing strategy is prevalent because, by hacking a person who has gained the trust of his followers, hackers have access to a significant number of people who are most likely to fall for the trap.
Beeple regains control of your account
On the same May 22, Beeple reported having recovered his Twitter account and advised his followers to “stay safe.” Of course, he warned that “anything that seems too good to be true is a scam.”
However, does that mean that his followers are already safe? No, no one on the Internet is 100% sure that they will not be scammed in some way.
If you have closely followed the introductory editions of Bitcoin Mexico, you will know how phishing works and that the best protection actions are:
- Be extremely cautious.
- Do not click on possible links found on Twitter, Discord, Email or another possible platform.
- Never trust. Not even from people on social media that you admire.
- If you want to learn more about how to protect yourself against phishing, we invite you to read the following article.
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