Yesterday, a number of scammers posted different links to a phishing website appearing similar to the Otherside NFT project page. Unfortunately, those who connected their wallets to the fake website ended up losing a ton of blue-chip NFTs.
Luckily, with on-chain detective @zachxbt on the lookout, this type of fraud would get exposed to the full extent most of the time. Now, let’s find out how the Otherside phishing scam unfolded.
Otherside phishing scams stole a number of blue-chip NFTs on the go
To begin with, these scammers carried out the attack using the most common phishing method ever. How? By luring unsuspecting people to the Otherside phishing webpage as seen above. As you could probably guess, those who connected their Metamask wallets to the site ended up losing a significant amount of blue-chip NFTs.
But how much are we talking about though? The answer: A $6.2 million loss in total.
According to @zachxbt, there are 3 scammer wallets tied to the fraud. One of the scammer wallets (wallet 0xb87) robbed $1.03 million (369 ETH) worth of NFTs just yesterday alone. Its most notable steal included 4 MAYCs, 1 BAYC, and more than 30 plots of The Sandbox land NFTs. And all of these came from several users who fell victim to the phishing scam, right on the day of the Otherside mint.
Another two wallets tied to the fraud: 0xa8 and 0x5d, contained a sum of $5.1 million worth of stolen NFTs. To illustrate, some of these stolen NFTs comprised of 4 BAYCs, 9 Azukis, 2 MAYCs, 2 WOWs, and more in both wallets. Needless to say, it was a nightmare for those who fell victim to the scam. Rather than getting to mint exclusive plots of the Otherside land NFTs, people lost their precious NFTs to the phishing scam instead.
As to how these 3 wallets interlinked, @zachxbt managed to give NFTevening a quick overview of it. Basically, the 0xb87 wallet transferred a MAYC and several other NFTs to the 0x5D wallet. From there, 0x5D sent a number of NFTs to the 0xA8 wallet. Although there’s a chance that these could be OTC trades, the 0xb87 wallet is the one behind the scam for sure.
A list of the Otherside phishing scammers’ wallet addresses
To get the full picture, you can check out the transactions on Etherscan based on scammers’ wallet addresses below:
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($1.03 million) 0xb87A938eAe9425db9F0F802B66362AA0b88e1ABB
- ($3.58 million) 0xA8189c566c8b602E23b016DA819c11dAe50160D6
- ($1.63 million) 0x5d97eEf1148D47db3cEd0DD7f6F508f38eA778F4
Did scammers try to shut @zachxbt up?
At one point, Twitter restricted @zachxbt’s account due to reports of suspicious activity. Without a doubt, fans suspected that the scammers went on to report @zachxbt on Twitter, after seeing him expose their shameless acts of phishing from those who wanted to mint the Otherside land NFTs. As of now, @zachxbt has regained access to his Twitter account. What a comeback at last!
Final thoughts
All in all, the key takeaway here is to never click on any unofficial or suspicious link. As of now, the scammers have already sold many of the stolen NFTs and sent their funds to the Tornado Cash. Sadly though, this incident will not be the last in the NFT space. In fact, as NFT gains in popularity, more scammers will step in to take advantage of NFT enthusiasts around the world.
We hate to see more people falling into these scams. Hence, getting yourself educated on NFT storage and security would be your best bet against NFT frauds.
All investment/financial opinions expressed by NFTevening.com are not recommendations.
This article is educational material.
As always, make your own research prior to making any kind of investment.
