Monkey Kingdom NFT Project on Solana Blockchain is the latest victim of a vile Discord Hack. The culprits managed to drain over $1.2 Million from the SOL wallets of thousands of fans who tried to mint NFTs. So instead of partying today with Steve Aoki to celebrate the launch, the community is in an uproar!
How Scammers Managed to Hack Monkey Kingdom’s Discord Account
Based on initial findings, a malicious bot managed to send an official announcement with a malicious link, which looked exactly like the original website. Here is a domain name: https://whois.domaintools.com/baepes.com
Monkey Kingdom is easily one of the known “Bluechip” projects in Solana NFT space, so you can just imagine how the community rushed in to mint the NFTs. Unfortunately, the website asked for permission from a Phantom wallet and it actually drained all SOL from their wallets.
What’s even alarming is that the scammers laid out an elaborate plan to execute the hack. They reported earlier that malicious links were spreading via DM. Then, they announced not to click anything except the official announcement channel to build up the credibility of the fake link. True enough, when they posted the malicious link, people joined the race to be the first ones to mint.
In addition, the team reported a DDOS attack on their website, which made it unavailable just before the mint.
How Can We Prevent This?
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. Last month, hackers targeted Phantom Galaxies’ Discord account. Basically, the fraudsters gained access to the upcoming futuristic open-world game’s Discord account. Then, they took over to defraud the users. So to amend the situation, Animoca Brands promised to cover the loss amounting to 265 ETH or about $1.1 Million.
Since hacks and scams are prevalent, one of the things that users can consider is installing a burner wallet. The burner wallet is just another account, which is there to hold temporary funds allocated for minting. This way, the risk and exposure of the users will be minimized.
Officially Squashing Discord’s NFT Plans?
Discord has now backtracked on its plans to introduce NFTs to its platform despite previous hints from the CEO, Jason Citron.
Amidst the sea of disapproval, the top sentiment is how a vast number of scams already permeate Discord Channels. So integrating NFTs will further encourage and entice. Some cited the environmental impact of minting NFTs.
“I’ve been using Discord all day, every day for years but I will drop it in a hot second if it starts integrating this pyramid scheme money laundering planet-destroying evil inc. Bullshit,” read one of the many comments on Discord’s site.
Unfortunately, the recent incidents just reaffirm the concerns of some users. The good news is that the NFT industry is still in its early stages, so the room for growth is tremendous, particularly in the security aspect. So for those rooting for Discord to integrate NFTs in the future, keep your fingers crossed!
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