An NFT influencer who goes by the pseudonym “NFT God” on Twitter has reportedly had $30,000 worth of digital collectibles stolen in a hack attack.
The individual claims that their wallet was drained after interacting with a sponsored advertisement on Google’s search engine that replicated an open-source video streaming software they were searching for. Along with the highly valuable Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) NFT, a number of other NFTs worth ETH 19 were also reported stolen.
The verified Twitter account of “NFT God”, which has over 91,000 followers mostly from the crypto community, posted about the incident warning others against being scammed. The hack took place on January 15.
Last night my entire digital livelihood was violated.
Every account connected to me both personally and professionally was hacked and used to hurt others.
Less importantly, I lost a life changing amount of my net worth
— NFT God (@NFT_GOD) January 15, 2023
This is not the first time that Google ads have been used in conjunction with phishing malware, and in October 2022, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao also warned against malicious actors targeting crypto investors via Google ads.
Google displays phishing sites when users search CMC. This affects users adding smart contract addresses to MetaMask using these phishing sites. We are trying to contact Google for this, and in the meantime alerting users about this through social channels. pic.twitter.com/3q4860Jl4H
— CZ ???? Binance (@cz_binance) October 27, 2022