Beeple’s Twitter Account Posted Phishing Links After Being Hacked

Over the weekend, the Twitter account of prominent digital artist and NFT creator Mike Winkelmann — better known as Beeple — was hacked and the perpetrators conducted a phishing scam on the artist’s large following.  During the time of the hack, Beeple’s tweets contained a link to a Louis Vuitton NFT raffle which would later siphon crypto from an unsuspecting user’s wallet, according to MetaMask security analyst Harry Denley.

The hackers likely hoped to take advantage of a real collaboration between Beeple and Louis Vuitton with the artist designing 30 NFTs for the luxury fashion brand’s mobile game Louis The Game earlier in May to be distributed as rewards for players. Another tweet was also posted on the artist’s account which contained a link that led to fake Beeple collections and guaranteed a free mint for unique NFTs.

All in all, around $438,000 were stolen from the five-hour hack of Beeple’s Twitter account. The first phishing link drained 36 ETH (approximately $73,000 at the time) from the artist’s followers while the second tweet siphoned $365,000 worth of ETH as well as numerous high-value NFTs from collections including the Mutant Ape Yacht Club, VeeFriends, and Otherdeeds.

Based on on-chain data, the NFTs have since been put up for sale on OpenSea while the stolen crypto has been put into a crypto mixer — a service that improves the anonymity of transactions — in an effort to launder the digital assets. After taking back control of his account, Beeple was quick to emphasize to his followers that “anything too good to be true IS A F*CKING SCAM.”

The digital artist has been a valuable target for hackers having created three among the top ten most expensive NFTs to have been sold to date. Earlier in November 2021, Beeple’s discord server was also hacked where the exploited admin account marketed a fake NFT drop resulting in individuals within the community losing around 38 ETH.

Source: CoinTelegraph