Hackers Stole $3M Worth of BAYC NFT Through Instagram Account Hack

• It is necessary to link your crypto wallet to get an airdrop.
• After discovery, the false links on the hijacked Instagram account were erased.

On Monday, bored Ape Yacht Club’s non-fungible-token (NFT) collection Instagram account was hacked. Using a phishing link, a thief stole NFTs from users. According to Gizmodo, three million dollars worth of cryptocurrency was taken from the victims. Estimated losses due to the fraud include four Bored Apes, six Mutant Apes, and three BAKC [Bored Ape Kennel Club] as a BAYC official informed Gizmodo.

Bogus Airdrop Link

After gaining access to the Instagram account, the hacker created a bogus airdrop link for the imminent launch of the ‘Otherside’ metaverse, a new initiative from the firm. Most of an airdrop’s purpose is to promote new projects or services. The goal is to transfer tokens or NFTs to thousands of crypto addresses to expect more and more recipients to interact and support the associated task. It is necessary to link your crypto wallet to get an airdrop. As a result, the fraudulent site took digital assets from customers’ wallets and transferred them to the hacker’s wallet.

In a tweet, BAYC said: 

“This morning, the official BAYC Instagram account was hacked. The hacker posted a fraudulent link to a copycat of the BAYC website with a fake Airdrop, where users were prompted to sign a ‘safe transfer from’ transaction. This transferred their assets to the scammer’s wallet.”

As soon as the BAYC team discovered the intrusion, the false links on the hijacked Instagram account were erased. However, exactly how the hacker gained access to BAYC’s Instagram account is still a mystery and only further investigation will reveal the answer.