$ 350,000 worth of Ethereum stolen by students: “It was a joke”
Time and again, hacker attacks cause excitement in the crypto scene. Now it was a 17-year-old student from the USA who was able to capture a total of 88 ETH. A comparatively small amount compared to the hack on the polygon network a few months ago when it was about 600 million US dollars, but this case also raises security concerns. It is not even about the network of a crypto currency, which is called too insecure, but about Discord. Because the hacker had managed to hack the Discord server of the development team and was able to pretend to be the moderator of the Discord channel.
In the course of this, the alleged fraudster tricked the channel’s members into transactions totaling 88 ETH (current value approx. 350,000 dollars). For the scam, the hacker shared a link that indicated that community members Creature Toadz would mint in a coin called a “stealth mint”. Just 45 minutes later it was clear that this was a fraud.
However, things turned out well for the members concerned: only a short time later, the hacker transferred the loot back. Many believe the hacker had no bad intentions and compared it to previous attacks, such as those on the Poly Network and Cream Finance, after which the funds were also returned. At this point in time, an NFT analyst called OKHotshot had already been able to identify the hacker’s true identity. The analyst used the traces left behind in the transactions to trace the hack back to the owner of a Twitter channel called HEERR (now deleted). OKHotshot finally wanted to publish the hacker’s identity.
In a public discussion on Twitter Spaces However, OKHotshot found that the potential hacker was also present, whereupon he asked the student to transfer the money back. The hacker then publicly confessed to the crime and said: “It was a joke.” He intended to transfer the stolen money back immediately anyway. Others, however, suspect that this is an excuse.
Shortly after the Twitter Spaces session ended, the hacker sent all funds back to the team’s address. Meanwhile, the Creature Toadz team has decided not to bring charges. They are now planning to compensate affected members. The transaction fees alone are likely to have burned a fair amount of the coins, so that the simple transfer back is not enough in this case.
The incident raises questions about Discord’s security features. Many in the NFT community, including OKHotshot, have reports that scammers use the same vulnerability to hack Discord channels.
In this case, it is important that the hack was not caused by a security hole in the Ethereum network. The blockchain of a cryptocurrency is still considered secure. In addition, this hack will not have an impact on the current wave of euphoria. Ethereum can look forward to a price of around $ 4,100 and is on the verge of a new all-time high.
