Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) Discord server has just been compromised in a reported massive phishing attack which has led to the theft of at least 1 MAYC NFT.
The incident was first identified and alerted in the early hours of Friday by a self-described on-chain sleuth who goes by the Twitter name @zachxbt.
BAYC Discord has been hacked & so far 1 MAYC has been stolen.
Funds are being directed here:https://t.co/Mrvec92UEV pic.twitter.com/OPyvPvM6pM
— zachxbt (@zachxbt) April 1, 2022
The hackers posted a phishing link on the NFT Discord channel, telling users that they can claim exclusive rewards by staking Mutant Ape Kennel Club NFTs for the newly launched ApeCoin.
One user said he lost his MAYC NFT to the attackers after visiting the website. The NFTs were then sold on the popular NFT marketplace, OpenSea, and funds were moved to an external wallet address.
The BAYC team was quick to respond to the attack, instructing users not to mint anything from the Discord channel.
“STAY SAFE. Do not mint anything from any Discord right now. A webhook in our Discord was briefly compromised. We caught it immediately but please know: we are not doing any April Fools stealth mints / airdrops etc. Other Discords are also being attacked right now,” BAYC tweeted.
Several other BAYC holders have complained that their NFTs are missing. However, the team is yet to confirm the claims.
The incident comes less than two weeks after the BAYC team officially launched its native cryptocurrency dubbed ApeCoin (APE).
Hackers Targeting NFTs
Meanwhile, BAYC was not the only target. The hackers also targeted Discord channels belonging to top NFT projects, including Doodles, Nyoki, and Shamanzs with stolen funds being directed to external wallets.
Non-fungible tokens are the hottest topic in the crypto space at the moment. In 2021, NFT trading volume amounted to more than $17 billion, a significant 21,000% increase from the previous year, data from Nonfungible.com revealed.
With the NFT market experiencing massive growth and quickly becoming one of the hottest sectors of the crypto space, hackers are now targeting NFT holders to profit from it.
Coinfomania reported in January that OpenSea suffered a front-end attack resulting in the loss of NFTs worth 332 ETH (about $800k).
Last month, an NFT owner lost three of his BAYC NFTs worth $900,000 in ETH to a wallet phishing website.
