Moonbirds creator Kevin Rose loses $1.1M+ in NFTs after 1 wrong move

1 year ago

Kevin Rose, the co-founder of the nonfungible token (NFT) postulation Moonbirds, has fallen unfortunate to a phishing scam starring to much than $1.1 cardinal worthy of his idiosyncratic NFTs stolen.

The NFT creator and PROOF co-founder shared the quality with his 1.6 cardinal Twitter followers connected Jan. 25 asking them to debar buying immoderate Squiggles NFTs until they negociate to get them flagged arsenic stolen.

I was conscionable hacked, enactment tuned for details - delight debar buying immoderate squiggles until we get them flagged (just mislaid 25) + a fewer different NFTs (an autoglyph) ...

— KΞVIN R◎SE (,) (@kevinrose) January 25, 2023

“Thank you for each the kind, supportive words. Full debrief coming,” helium past shared successful a abstracted tweet astir 2 hours later.

It is understood that Rose’s NFTs were drained aft signing a malicious signature that transferred a important proportionality of his NFT assets to the exploiter.

GM – what a day!
Today I was phished. Tomorrow we'll screen each the details live, arsenic a cautionary tail, connected twitter spaces. Here is however it went down, technically: https://t.co/DgBKF8qVBK

— KΞVIN R◎SE (,) (@kevinrose) January 25, 2023

An autarkic analysis from Arkham recovered that the exploiter extracted astatine slightest 1 Autoglyph (345 ETH), 25 Art Blocks — besides known arsenic Chromie Squiggle — (332.5 ETH) and 9 OnChainMonkey items (7.2 ETH).

In total, astatine slightest 684.7 ETH ($1.1 million) was extracted.

How Kevin Rose got exploited

While respective autarkic on-chain analyses person been shared, Vice President of PROOF — the institution down Moonbirds — Arran Schlosberg explained to his 9,500 Twitter followers that Rose “was phished into signing a malicious signature” which allowed the exploiter to transportation implicit a ample fig of tokens:

1/ This was a classical portion of societal engineering, tricking KRO into a mendacious consciousness of security. The method facet of the hack was constricted to crafting signatures accepted by OpenSea's marketplace contract.

— Arran (@divergencearran) January 25, 2023

Crypto expert “foobar” further elaborated connected the “technical facet of the hack” successful a abstracted station connected Jan. 25, explaining that Rose approved a OpenSea marketplace declaration to determination each of his NFTs whenever Rose signed transactions.

He added that Rose was ever “one malicious signature” distant from an exploit:

be ace cautious erstwhile signing anything, adjacent offchain signatures. kevin roseate conscionable had ~$2 cardinal worthy of NFTs drained from his vault from signing 1 malicious seaport bundle. thankfully a mates things held back, similar the punk zombie (1000 ETH) which can't beryllium traded connected OS pic.twitter.com/GXHR3NQHLf

— foobar (@0xfoobar) January 25, 2023

The crypto expert said Rose should person alternatively been “siloing” his NFT assets successful a abstracted wallet:

“Moving assets from your vault to a abstracted "selling" wallet earlier listing connected NFT marketplaces volition forestall this.”

Another on-chain analyst, “Quit” told his 71,400 Twitter followers further explained that malicious signature was enabled by the Seaport marketplace declaration — the level which powers OpenSea:

Kevin Rose was conscionable mislaid $2m+ successful assets by signing an off-chain signature that created a listing for each of his OpenSea approved assets successful 1 go.

While seaport is simply a almighty tool, it tin besides beryllium unsafe if you're not alert of however it works.

A spot of discourse 1/

— discontinue (@0xQuit) January 25, 2023

Quit explained that the exploiters were capable to acceptable up a phishing tract that was capable to presumption the NFT assets held successful Rose’s wallet.

The exploiter past acceptable up an bid for each of Rose’s assets that are approved connected OpenSea to past beryllium transferred to the exploiter.

Rose past validated the malicious transaction, noted Quit. 

Related: Bluechip NFT task Moonbirds signs with Hollywood endowment agents UTA

However, foobar added that astir of the stolen assets were good supra the level price, which means that the magnitude stolen could beryllium arsenic precocious arsenic $2 million.

Quit urged that OpenSea users “need to tally away” from immoderate different website that prompts users to motion thing that looks suspicious.

NFTs connected the move

On-chain expert “ZachXBT” shared a transaction representation to his 350,300 Twitter followers, which shows that the exploiter sent the assets to FixedFloat — a cryptocurrency speech connected the Bitcoin layer-2 “Lightning Network.”

The exploiter past transferred the funds into Bitcoin (BTC) and earlier depositing the BTC into a Bitcoin mixer:

Three hours agone Kevin was phished for $1.4m+ worthy of NFTs. Earlier contiguous the aforesaid scammer stole 75 ETH from different victim.

Mapping this retired we tin spot a wide inclination of sending the stolen funds to FixedFloat and swapping for BTC earlier depositing to a bitcoin mixer. https://t.co/2yrFpfYttT pic.twitter.com/ZlywPYydwx

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) January 25, 2023

Crypto Twitter subordinate "Degentraland” told their 67,000 Twitter followers that it was the “saddest thing” they person seen successful cryptocurrency abstraction to date, adding that if anyone tin travel backmost from specified a devastating exploit, “it’s him”:

— Degentraland (@Degentraland) January 25, 2023

Meanwhile, Bankless laminitis Ryan Sean Adams was enraged with the easiness astatine which Rose was capable to beryllium exploited. In the Jan. 25 tweet, Adams urged front-end engineers to prime up their crippled and amended idiosyncratic acquisition (UX) to forestall specified scams from taking place.

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