Hacker breaches BAYC’s Instagram account

An unknown hacker breached the official Instagram account of the NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and posted a phishing link.

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 ‘safeTransferFrom’ transaction. This transferred their assets to the scammer’s wallet.

— Bored Ape Yacht Club (@BoredApeYC) April 25, 2022

It directed users to a fake BAYC site allegedly with an airdrop. Users were asked to sign a safeTransferFrom transaction, after which all their assets were transferred to the attacker’s wallet.

This fake message seem to have appeared on the official Instagram or Otherside Discord server. pic.twitter.com/4UwmNkV4d5

— Melbo.eth (@Melbo_eth) April 25, 2022

The team regained control of the account and began an investigation into the incident.

According to PeckShield, the hacker’s haul totaled about 765.3 ETH and 91 NFTs. He had already sold 23 NFTs and earned around $2.4 million. The stolen cryptocurrency began moving to centralized exchanges.

#PeckShieldAlert #phishing ~765.3 $ETH & ~91 NFTs were stolen in BAYC Instagram exploit. Exploiters already sold ~23 NFTs (including 4 $BAYC, 6 $MAYC, 2 $CloneX) and gained ~$2.4m. They donated ~1.6 $ETH to Ukraine Crypto Donation and began transferring stolen $ETH to CEXs. https://t.co/TOeg4wg36i pic.twitter.com/57ULC7luDc

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) April 26, 2022

The hacker also sent 1.6 ETH to a crypto-donation fund for Ukraine.

As reported, the company behind BAYC, Yuga Labs, planned on April 30 launch of the Otherside metaverse.

In March the firmraised $450 million from Andreessen Horowitz, Animoca Brands and other investors. The company was valued at $4 billion.