At a time when the fate of many NFT collections rests on a knife-edge, the last thing they need is internet hoodlums showing up to ruin their day. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to the Gutter Cat Gang, who recently saw its Twitter accounts infiltrated and community members relieved of over $750k worth of NFTs.
Over the weekend, legacy NFT collection, the Gutter Cat Gang, found itself the target of crypto’s worst denizens. In a two-pronged approach, the on-chain wrongdoers gained control of the project’s Twitter account, along with that of one of the it’s founders. Then proceeded to pose as project admin to gain access to its followers’ wallets.
Once in control of the Gutter Cat socials, the unscrupulous fraudsters posted a plausible airdrop featuring the recently launched GutterMelo collection. However, the associated link then took users to a fake mint site, which then executed a wallet drainer attack.
When the dust had settled, approximately 87 NFTs had been swiped from around 16 wallets, with the range of purloined tokens valued in the region of $750k. Among which, the worst affected saw 36 NFTs go astray, including the highly coveted Bored Ape #9434.
Gutter Cat Gang has since expressed regret for the attack, and revealed it is currently working with law enforcement. However, it has made no comment on possible refunds, or any attempts to recover the appropriated goods.
Gutter Cat Gang Twitter accounts were compromised yesterday. Malicious tweets were posted Friday afternoon, July 7 (Eastern Time). The team has regained control of the known compromised accounts.
We promptly reached out to our contacts at Twitter, law enforcement and mobile…
— Gutter Cat Gang (@GutterCatGang) July 8, 2023
Questions Arise Concerning the Gutter Cat Gang’s Security
Since the attack occurred, many members of the Web3 community have questioned the security of the project, and how two accounts could have been compromised simultaneously. Superhuman crypto sleuth, ZachXBT, then waded into the debate to reveal that despite using two-factor authentication, it was SMS-based, rather than the more secure App or USB backed system.
Over recent years, the SMS method has proven by far the weakest of the three, as it requires the diligence of network provider customer service staff to be effective. As a result, bad actors have all-to frequently gained access to the target’s SIM card by posing as the owner via general customer service channels.
Despite this latest setback, the Gutter Cat Gang floor price only faltered slightly in the aftermath of the incident. However, it once again raised questions regarding the security of both Twitter, and legacy NFT projects.
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*All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFT Plazas are from the personal research and experience of our site moderators and are intended as educational material only. Individuals are required to fully research any product prior to making any kind of investment.
Decentralised human, Explorer, Adventurer.