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Azuki Twitter account was hacked leading to stolen NFTs
In the midst of a series of NFT scams and phishing attacks, leading NFT project Azuki falls victim to a Twitter hack leading to a loss of over $750,000 worth of USD Coin (USDC). The sudden attack and cash drain happened within 30 minutes. This is another grim day for the NFT community, with fierce attacks on several top entrepreneurs and projects happening one after the other. Read on to learn more about the incident.
How did the Azuki Twitter Hack happen?
On Friday afternoon, the official Twitter of NFT innovators Azuki was hacked. Project manager Emily Rose confirmed the news on Twitter minutes after the hack took place. In the tweet, she warns users not to engage with or click on any of the malicious links posted on the account. The malicious tweet sent out a link asking followers to “claim land” in Azuki’s original “The Garden” metaverse.
The hacked tweets were soon deleted from the account, but managers still warned against clicking on malicious links. Although all damage control was in vain. This is because at this time Azuki saw a wallet drained of over $750,000 USDC, 11 NFTs and an additional 3.9 ETH. This link sent users to sign a “drainer” contract to trick them into losing control of their wallet and transferring NFTs to the hacker.
Project founder Hoshiboy also confirmed the hack, explaining that he is in talks with Twitter to resolve the situation. Additionally, the loss of $750,000 occurred from a single account. Azuki Twitter also says the account is fully 2-factor authenticated. In the thread announcing the hack, the account also says that the project always sends out its official releases via ALL social media at the same time – Twitter, Discord, and the official Azuki website.
Who is behind Azuki Hack?
Crypto detective @ZachXBT claims this attack is one of a series of drains by a hacker known only as Lock. According to the encryption expert, Lock is the same hacker responsible for the recent compromise of Mutant Hounds, AKCB and Chimper’s Twitter accounts. In addition, there are some who believe that all of these may be internal jobs from Twitter itself. Harry Denley of Metamask Security Research also caught the scam early on and forced a domain block on the platform. He claims that the hack may have taken place due to three main reasons:
- scenario a) compromise of passwords/cookies.
- scenario b) Twitter “god mode” – A program that allows Twitter employees to tweet from any account.
- scenario c) A malicious OAuth app.
Although he claims “scenario a” is the most likely case. Phantom Wallet also blocked the domain on their platform soon after.
These are strange times in crypto. The small but significant bull run remains steady. And yet, a number of phishing attacks and hacks happen almost every day. Also, there is a lack of security on the Twitter platform in general. NFTEvening follows this story as it develops further.
