The X account of the virtual reality-focused Decentraland project was compromised earlier today to promote phishing links.
According to the PeckSheild alert, on September 19, cryptocurrency scammers took over Decentraland’s X account to promote a fake aidrop for its native token MANA, which ultimately turned out to be a phishing campaign targeting the project’s over 607,000 subscribers.
Ironically, the scammers also disabled comments on their posts, claiming this was to prevent “malicious links.”
The now-deleted messages appeared around 01:50 UTC and promoted a malicious website branded as Decentraland. Users were redirected to the launch-decentraland(.org) website and asked to claim the airdrop by connecting their wallets.
Typically, in such a scenario, users are prompted to sign a malicious blockchain transaction that transfers control of the wallet to the bad actor, allowing them to drain all crypto funds or other assets present.
After the initial posts were deleted, two more similar posts were made, this time promoting a different website: token-decentraland(.)org, and as of this writing, these posts remain in effect.
It’s not yet clear how many users were affected by this campaign, but PeckShield has urged users to avoid interacting with Decentraland’s X account. Based on recent activity, it appears that the VR platform has yet to regain control of the account.
Crypto space is the new hunting ground for phishing scammers
Several prominent crypto projects have recently been targeted by scammers, with phishing scams leading to at least $63 million in losses in August alone. For example, Polygon’s Discord channel was compromised last month and phishing links were posted, echoing a similar attack on Liquid re-staking platform Renzo earlier this year.
Individual traders were not spared, with one large DAI investor losing $55 million in seconds. An NFT trader lost over $145,000 in Bored Ape Yacht Club collectibles just months before.
The common denominator in all of these attacks is victims signing malicious transactions. Cybersecurity experts call this “approval phishing,” and it has led to over $2.7 billion in losses since 2021, according to Chainalysis.
These scams are mostly prevalent on social media platforms like X and Telegram, with SlowMist research indicating that over 80% of all comments under official crypto project posts contained phishing links.
With scams becoming more sophisticated, vigilance has never been more important. Cryptocurrency enthusiasts should stay informed and exercise caution when interacting online.
In response to these growing threats, cryptocurrency wallets like MetaMask have stepped up their efforts by integrating new security features aimed at protecting users from such attacks.
