Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Stolen in Instagram Phishing Attack

Hackers have breached the official Instagram page for the popular NFT collectible and shared a link to a fake airdrop with fans of the project, developers at Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) revealed Monday.

Crypto enthusiasts who connected their MetaMask wallets to the scam site were subsequently drained of their Ape NFTs. The attack appears to have been planned to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the BAYC product launch, increasing the "perceived credibility" of the phishing link.

Unconfirmed reports on social media suggest that around 100 NFTs were stolen during the phishing attack. Each BAYC NFT has a base price of around 139 ethereum (ETH), or $400,726, according to CoinGecko. So, if the reports are true, assets worth over $40 million have already been lost in the attack. However, these figures may only represent the lower bound of the estimate as it is based on floor prices.

While social media users have pointed to the importance of two-factor authentication as it is effective at preventing unauthorized logins, others say the method is not completely secure and can, in fact, be hacked by swapping SIM cards.

BAYC has grown to become the most popular NFT collectible in the crypto space, with sales exceeding $1 billion in 2021. The collectible has a fixed supply of 10,000 NFTs. Over 38,748 ETH of Apes were traded on OpenSea in the last 30 days.