The Bored Ape Instagram account was hacked and sent out a link to a scam site, resulting in $2.8M in losses.
On Monday, the official Bored Ape Yacht Club Instagram account shared a link. The link claimed that Bored Ape creator Yuga Labs was offering free NFT land for its upcoming Otherside metaverse game. The site claimed that anyone who connected an Ethereum wallet would receive a free airdrop of virtual land, even if they didn’t own a Bored Ape NFT.
Many people fell for the scam, with 91 NFTs stolen from connected wallets in a combined value of over $2.8 million. The wallet tied to the scam managed to steal four Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs, seven Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs, and three Bored Ape Kennel Club NFTs, among a myriad of other stolen tokens.
“This morning our team was alerted that the Bored Ape Yacht Club’s official Instagram account was hacked,” reads Yuga Lab’s official statement on the incident. “The hacker posted a fraudulent link to a copycat of the Bored Ape Yacht Club website, where a safeTransferFrom attack asked users to connect their MetaMask wallet to the scammer’s wallet in order to participate in a fake airdrop.”
“At 9:53 am ET we alerted our community, removed all links to Instagram from our platforms and attempted to recover the hacked Instagram account,” the statement continues. “Two-factor authentication was enabled and the security practices surrounding the IG account were tight. Yuga Labs and Instagram are currently investigating how the hacker was able to gain access to the account. We’re still investigating.”
It does not appear that any of the Bored Ape NFTs owned by Universal Music for its digital band KINGSHIP were impacted by the phishing attack. Yuga Labs says it is trying to make contact with those who were impacted by the scam, but they haven’t shared what course of action they’ll take.