Report: Hackers stole thousands of dollars worth of digital art from users on NFT platform

To secure accounts on online services, users are encouraged to enable 2FA and not reuse passwords. — 123rf.com

Users on social media claimed that their accounts on a website have been breached with hackers stealing NFTs or digital artwork worth thousands of dollars, according to a report by The Verge.

In a statement on Twitter, NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway confirmed that a small number of users appear to have been impacted by an “account takeover” but said there was no evidence to suggest that its platform has been breached by hackers.

Instead, it believed that hackers may have used login credentials belonging to users that were leaked from other services. It added that the affected users also did not have two-factor authentication enabled (2FA) to secure their accounts.

“Our analysis is ongoing, but our initial assessment indicates that the impact was limited, none of the impacted accounts had 2FA enabled, and access was obtained via valid account credentials,” the company said in its statement.

A number of users took to Twitter to share experiences that their accounts on the NFT marketplace have been hacked.

One user on Twitter claimed to have US$150,000 (RM616,950) worth of digital art stolen from their account. The person also claimed that the hacker used a credit card attached to the account to purchase US$20,000 (RM82,260) worth of art. Happily, in a later update the user said Nifty Gateaway was able to resolve the issue and recover all the art stolen from their account.

Another user shared that hackers stole his NFTs and even purchased US$10,000 (RM41,130) worth of digital art. The NFTs were then transferred to another account. He also discovered that his stolen NFTs has been purchased by other users through a Discord channel.

Nifty Gateway said it has seen reports of NFTs related to the account takeovers being sold in transactions negotiated over Discord and Twitter.

“We strongly encourage all Nifty Gateway customers to purchase their NFTs on the official Nifty Gateway marketplace,” the company stated, adding that it also encouraged all users to enable 2FA and not reuse passwords.

NFT stands for non-fungible token which allows users to purchase and sells digital items such as artwork, video clips and GIFs and keep track of the ownership with blockchain.

It has become synonymous with pricey assets such as Beeple’s “Everydays - The First 5000 Days” digital art which fetched US$69mil (RM283mil) at a Christie's auction on March 11.