NFT influencer said he had lost a ‘significant sum’ in cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens after downloading infected software promoted by Google Ads.
Last night my entire digital livelihood was violated.
Every account connected to me both personally and professionally was hacked and used to hurt others.
Less importantly, I lost a life changing amount of my net worth
— NFT God (@NFT_GOD) January 15, 2023
Known in the Twitter community as NFT God said he used Google search to download OBS Studio — a free program for recording video and live streaming. According to him, instead of the official site for the software he clicked the first link offered by Google Ads. Launching the installer, the user got distracted by a game.
According to NFT God, within a couple of hours one of his Twitter followers messaged him that his account had been hacked and was sending fraudulent notifications.
Then the influencer discovered that his NFTs, including Mutant Ape Yacht Club tokens, were listed for sale on OpenSea from another address. The attacker gained access to NFT God’s crypto wallet.
‘Over the course of the evening, the digital assets that belonged to me were stolen,’ he wrote.
The hacker managed to exploit all of NFT God’s online communication channels, including Gmail and Discord. The attacker sent two phishing emails to his 16,000 subscribers on the Substack content platform.
‘The trusted relationships I had been building for more than a year are shattered. The loss of part of my capital is nothing compared with the loss of my community’s trust,’ NFT God emphasised.
Regarding the hack of his hardware wallet, the influencer admitted his own ‘critical mistake’ — during setup he entered the seed phrase in such a way that the storage ceased to be cold or autonomous.
I didn’t sign anything with my wallet. I didn’t execute a bad mint. A critical mistake on one technology led to my downfall on another.
The file I downloaded from the ODS sponsored link was obviously malware. The first sponsored link I’ve ever clicked will certainly be my last
— NFT God (@NFT_GOD) January 15, 2023
‘The file I downloaded from the sponsored Google Ads link was obviously malware. The first sponsored link I have ever clicked, of course, will be my last,’ NFT God concluded.
As noted, in October 2022, Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao warned that Google search results promote cryptocurrency-targeted phishing sites.
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