Arthur Cheong, founder of DeFi and web3-focused venture capital company DeFiance Capital, suffered a breach today that resulted in the loss of more than one million dollars’ worth of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
At around 12:50 a.m. UTC today, an unknown hacker started emptying NFTs from Cheong’s Ethereum wallet. Cheong subsequently acknowledged the breach through Twitter remarks.
According to security company PeckShield, the hacker stole 17 Azuki, 5 CloneX, 2 Hedgies, and 33 Second Self — all of which are famous NFT collections — which he subsequently sold on markets such as OpenSea. Additionally, the hacker moved other tokens such as wrapped ether, Lido DAO Token, LooksRare, and DYDX to a wallet controlled by them.
The perpetrator’s wallet now includes about 585 ETH ($1.7 million), which may be linked back to Cheong’s wallet. According to Cheong, the number might climb further since the hacker looks to be in the process of transferring cash.
According to the creator of DeFiance, the hacker used a’spear phishing’ email to install malware on his device, extracting the seed phrase for his crypto wallet. Additionally, he sent an image of the email.
“Identified the exploit’s most probable source; it’s a targeted social engineering assault. Received a spear-phishing email that seems to have been issued by one of our portcos and contains stuff that appears to be industry-related,” Cheong stated.
This is not the first instance of hackers successfully stealing precious NFTs from a prominent investor. In one instance in January 2022, Kramer, a New York-based NFT collector, claimed that his wallet had been hacked and $2.2 million worth of Bored Apes and Mutant Apes were taken.
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