The Twitter account of top non-fungible token (NFT) project Azuki was hacked on Friday, resulting in the loss of more than $750,000 in crypto assets. After taking over the project’s account yesterday afternoon, hackers posted a wallet drying link disguised as an invitation for users to participate in a virtual land deed in The Garden, Azuki’s original metaverse platform.
Wallet drainers act as phishing mechanisms designed to trick unsuspecting victims into agreeing to transactions that transfer crypto assets, such as cryptocurrencies or non-fungible tokens, from their wallet to those of the hackers.
According to Etherscan data, these bad actors drained $751,321 or $81 from a single wallet within 30 minutes after tweeting the malicious link representing the largest theft. The attackers also removed more than 3.9 ETH, 11 NFT and $6,742.62 in USDC from other crypto wallets.
Azuki Community Manager Emily Rose was the first original authority to confirm that the project’s Twitter profile had been hacked. via a tweetEmily issued a warning advising users not to click on any link posted by the account.
Azuki was involved in another social media attack
In the hours following the cyberattack, Azuki was able to regain control of his Twitter account, pulling back the malicious tweets. The animation-based NFT project management team has also released a statment He said the investigation is already underway while advising his followers to check that any future advertisements are posted simultaneously on Azuki’s many media channels for authenticity.
Interestingly, this would not be the first time that the Azuki NFT project has been the main figure in a social media crypto scandal. Early last year, hackers hijacked several verified Twitter accounts, and used them to promote airdrops of fake Azuki NFTs. Notable among these accounts was that of the University of India Scholarship Commission, which was promptly recovered after the breach.
The crypto market records another cyberattack for the year 2023
News of Azuki’s cyberattack comes two days after the Twitter profile of prominent trading platform Robinhood was also hacked and used to drive the sale of a fake cryptocurrency – RBH.
Although the Robinhood team promptly restored the account within minutes and deleted the false promotional tweet, the hackers could still have stolen more than $8,000 from the gullible investors who fell for the scam.
While the losses incurred in the Robinhood attack pale in comparison to Azuki’s, both incidents represent the only major cyberattacks in the crypto market in 2023.
So far, the cryptocurrency market is still maintaining its bullish trend for the year, with several assets showing a positive price pattern over the past seven days. According to Tradingview.com data, the entire market is traded with a market capitalization of $1.002 trillion, which is an increase of 25.78% since the beginning of 2023.
Cryptocurrency market cap at $1.002 trillion | Source: TOTAL chart on Tradingview.com
Featured image: Zipmex, chart from Tradingview.com