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OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace in the world, faced a phishing attack a few days ago. In the attack, Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were stolen from the users of OpenSea. Earlier, it was rumored that the marketplace had been hacked. But, the marketplace denied all such allegations and called it a phishing attack. Clearing all rumors, Devin Finzer, CEO and chairman of OpenSea, asked users not to connect the attack with the OpenSea website and tweeted “This is a phishing attack.”
Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Bitfinex, cautioned the NFT holders after various users lost their holdings in the phishing attacks, asking them to undermine the fraudster’s ability to steal your crypto assets. Bitfinex is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency exchange platform and was founded in December 2012. It is owned and operated by iFinex, registered in the British Virgin Islands.
Here is the commentary on the OpenSea phishing attack from Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Bitfinex:
“Never underestimate the ingenuity of fraudsters’ use of technology to steal your digital token assets. The phishing attack that took place at OpenSea over the weekend, where millions of dollars of NFTs were stolen, once again demonstrates that even the most tech-savvy can fall victim to these types of scams. Always be alert to the risks posed by scammers and take the following steps to protect your digital token assets: Never respond to an unsolicited message. Always check and validate the authenticity of a platform. Avoid open Wi-Fi networks. Put 2-factor Authentication in place whenever possible. Protect your password. Be extremely wary about the origin of an email. Always verify the legitimacy of senders. Never click on links in an email; instead, always type the address directly into the address bar. Regularly update antivirus solutions. And most importantly, hold your digital tokens offline in a hardware wallet.”
The bad actors each day are finding new and innovative ways to break the security barriers and hack the accounts of users. Ardoino believes that even tech-savvies are not prone to such risks and need to protect themselves from such attacks. He ensures there are various ways to prevent these attacks.
OpenSea shared the announcement of their latest upgrade last week. The announcement stated that users are required to migrate their NFTs to a new contract from the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.
Shortly after the announcement, the OpenSea users started receiving phishing emails. These fake emails were sent to OpenSea NFT holders and claimed to be the gateway to get their NFTs listed on the new smart contract.
With a background in journalism, Ritika Sharma has worked with many reputed media firms focusing on general news such as politics and crime. She joined The Coin Republic as a reporter for crypto, and found a great passion for cryptocurrency, Web3, NFTs and other digital assets. She spends a lot of time researching and delving deeper into these concepts around the clock, and is a strong advocate for women in STEM.
