The Twitter account of the top non-fungible token (NFT) project, Azuki, was compromised on Friday, resulting in the loss of over $750,000 in crypto assets. After taking over the project’s account yesterday afternoon, the hackers posted a wallet channel link disguised as an invitation for users to participate in the virtual land mint on Park, Azuki’s original metaverse platform.
Wallet drainers function as phishing mechanisms designed to trick unsuspecting victims into approving transactions that transfer crypto assets, such as cryptocurrency or non-fungible tokens, from their wallets to hackers.
According to data by Etherscan, this bad actor withdrew $751,321, or 81 USDC worth from one wallet within 30 minutes after the malicious link was tweeted showing the biggest heist. The attacker also removed over 3.9 ETH, 11 NFT, and $6,742.62 in USDC from other crypto wallets.
Emily Rose, Azuki’s community manager, was the first indigenous authority to confirm the project’s Twitter profile had been hacked. Through a tweetEmily issued a warning advising users not to click on any links posted by the account.
Azuki Participates But In Another Social Media Attack
Within hours of the cyber attack, Azuki was able to regain control of his Twitter account, pulling down the malicious tweets. The anime-based NFT project management team also released a statement said an investigation has been carried out while advising his followers to check whether any future announcements are posted simultaneously on several Azuki media channels to ensure their validity.
Interestingly, this wouldn’t be the first time that Azuki’s NFT project has been the main character in a social media crypto scandal. Early last year, hackers hijacked several verified Twitter accounts, using them to promote fake Azuki NFT airdrops. Most prominent among these accounts is the University Grants Commission of India, which was taken over immediately after the breach.
Crypto Market Sees Another Cyber Attack For 2023
News of Azuki’s cyber attack comes two days after the Twitter profile of popular trading platform Robinhood was also compromised and used to push the sale of a fake crypto token – RBH.
Although the team at Robinhood immediately recovered the account within minutes and removed the fake promotional tweet, the hackers still managed to steal over $8,000 from the naive investors who had fallen for the scam.
While the losses incurred in the Robinhood attack pale in comparison to Azuki, these two incidents are the only major cyber attacks on the crypto market in 2023.
So far, the crypto market is still maintaining a bullish trend for the year, with many assets showing positive price patterns over the last seven days. According to data from Tradingview.com, the entire market is trading with a market capitalization of $1.002 trillion, representing an increase of about 25.78% since the beginning of 2023.
Crypto Market Capitalization at $1.002T | Source: TOTAL chart on Tradingview.com
Featured Image: Zipmex, Chart from Tradingview.com