Bored Ape NFT Thief Steals $2.7M in Instagram Hack

Chris Williams

Apr. 25, 2022

Someone hacked Bored Ape Yacht Club’s official Instagram account and posted a malicious link that lured followers into sending over their NFTs this afternoon. They got away with a haul worth at least $2.7 million.

Bored Ape NFT Thief Steals $2.7M in Instagram Hack

Cover artwork courtesy of Bored Ape Yacht Club

The hacker stole 91 NFTs, including 14 Bored Ape Yacht Club-affiliated NFTs.

Bored Ape Yacht Club Instagram Hacked

Yet more Bored Ape Yacht Club members have lost their high-value NFTs in an attack.

Today, a malicious actor hacked the blue chip NFT collection’s Instagram account, posting a malicious link that drained NFTs from their Ethereum wallets. Bored Ape Yacht Club issued warnings about the hack on its social media channels shortly after the attack occurred.

🚨There is no mint going on today. It looks like BAYC Instagram was hacked. Do not mint anything, click links, or link your wallet to anything.

— Bored Ape Yacht Club 🍌 (@BoredApeYC) April 25, 2022

The link was labeled as a landing page to mint plots of land for the sought-after collection’s Otherside project, which will launch this week. However, when the victims clicked the link and connected their wallets, they inadvertently agreed to send their NFTs to the hacker.

Etherscan data shows that the attacker stole 91 NFTs, including four Bored Apes worth over $420,000 apiece at current prices. They stole a further 10 NFTs from the Bored Ape-affiliated Mutant Ape Kennel Club and Bored Ape Kennel Club collections, a Deadfellaz NFT, and two CloneX NFTs. Based on current floor prices, Crypto Briefing calculated the haul’s value to be at least 960 Ethereum, or about $2.7 million.

Today’s hack is the latest in a series of attacks targeting Bored Ape Yacht Club community members. A similar attack occurred earlier this month when a malicious actor hacked the project’s Discord server. Phishing attackers have specifically targeted Bored Ape owners in the past due to the high value of the NFTs. In February, a phishing attacker posing as OpenSea stole over $3 million worth of NFTs, many of which were from the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection.

The entry price for membership to the Bored Ape Yacht Club is currently at an all-time high in the lead-up to the project’s highly anticipated Otherside launch. As prices continue to soar, opportunists are increasingly finding ways to profit at the Bored Ape community’s expense.

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this piece owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.

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