An influential NFT user claims to have lost a “life-changing amount” of his net worth in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies after accidentally downloading malware found through a Google ad search.
A pseudonymous influencer known on Twitter as “NFT God” posted a series of tweets on 14 January describing how his “entire digital livelihood” was under attack, including the compromising of his crypto wallet and several online accounts.
The self-proclaimed god of NFTs, also known as ‘Alex’, said he used the Google search engine to download OBS, an open source video streaming software. But instead of going to the official website, he clicked on a sponsored ad which he believed led to the same place.
It wasn’t until a few hours later, after a series of phishing tweets posted by attackers on the two Twitter accounts Alex manages, that he realized the malware had been downloaded from the sponsored ads along with the software he needed.
After receiving a message from a friend, Alex noticed that his crypto wallet had also been compromised. The next day, the attackers hacked into his Substack account and sent phishing emails to his 16,000 subscribers.
The attackers transferred most of the ETH through several wallets before sending it to the decentralized exchange (DEX) FixedFloat, where it was exchanged for unknown cryptocurrencies.
Unfortunately, the NFT God experience is not the first time the crypto community has come across malware stealing cryptocurrencies from Google Ads.
A 12 January report from cybersecurity firm Cyble reported on an information-stealing malware called ‘Rhadamanthys Stealer’, which is spread via Google Ads on “very convincing phishing webpages”.