On Saturday morning, the Twitter account (X) of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin was hit by a hack. An unknown attacker used Buterin’s X username to spread a phishing link. The victims lost valuable tokens.
Who falls for that, you might ask? The victims were lured by the apparent endorsement of Vitalik Buterin and were directed to the phishing site with the prospect of acquiring a ConsenSys NFT commemorative coin. However, after confirming a transaction on the fraudulent site, they discovered to their horror that their wallet had been emptied.
Consensys is a private blockchain software technology company founded by Joseph Lubin and based in New York City. It’s not directly related to this story, but it’s interesting to know.
Nearly $700,000 stolen
According to data from Etherscan, the hacker’s wallet currently contains assets worth over $390,000. However, crypto researcher ZachXBT noted that the hacker had collected at least $691,000 worth of stolen loot at one point.
The stolen assets also included a piece of NFT history: the very first Larva Labs CryptoPunk claimed by a member of the general public, as reported by an X user.