The bad actors used a fake Gutter Cat Gang airdrop scam to drain people’s wallets, with at least $700,000 worth of NFTs stolen from a single address.
More than $765,000 worth of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) has been stolen as part of a reported SIM swap attack on the Gutter Cat Gang NFT project.
The security breach was highlighted by several NFT community members at around 8:00 pm UTC on July 7, with Gutter Cat Gang co-founder Gutter Mitch tweeting out a warning: “Our Twitter has been compromised please do not interact with any links.”
Alongside the official Gutter Cat Gang account, co-founder Gutter Ric was also hacked.
The hackers used the accounts to share links to fake limited edition Gutter Cat Gang NFT sneaker airdrops that essentially drained people’s hot wallets when they clicked on them.
To make the fictitious links look more legitimate, the tweets included recent Gutter Cat Gang branding and imagery from the project’s phygital sneaker drop in partnership with Puma and NBA/Charlotte Hornets star LaMelo Ball.
Responding to Gutter Mitch’s thread, prominent blockchain sleuth ZachXBT asserted that the team was hacked via a SIM swap attack, as he questioned the team’s cybersecurity practices.
“Your team better look at a compensation plan for victims as it is gross negligence to have used SMS 2FA on your socials after all of the recent SIM swaps,” ZachXBT said.
Related: $794K SIM swap hacker PlugwalkJoe sentenced to 5 years in prison
In a separate thread, ZachXBT highlighted two victims of the attack, with one losing a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT worth $65,913 at current floor prices, and another losing a whopping $700,000 worth of NFTs from a host of blue chip collections.
Providing an update on the matter, Gutter Cat Gang co-founder Gutter Dan stated: “We are working with Twitter to regain access to the compromised Gutter-affiliated Twitter accounts.”
“We deeply sympathize with all those impacted and want to assure you that we are taking this matter very seriously and are working with law enforcement to investigate the hack and security breach,” he wrote.
At the time of writing, it appears that the accounts are still compromised.
Gutter Cat Gang was launched in mid-2021 and consists of 3000 unique NFT cartoon cat avatars. The current floor price sits at 0.5 Ether
$1,865, up almost 615% from the initial cost to mint, according to NFT Price Floor.
