Gillas believes the hackers gained unauthorized access to the wallet through a drain exploit after an inadvertent interaction with a malicious link. The creation of the auction emerged to raise funds to help a girl who suffers from a rare CLDN5 gene mutation.
The wallet of actor and comedian Bill Murray, used to sell official NFTs inspired by his life, recently suffered a cyberattack. According to his partners at The Chive and Project Venkman, that happened after a charity auction.
The hackers stole almost 110 wrapped Ethereum (wETH) from the wallet, equivalent to around USD 174,000. They did it after the auction of an exclusive single-edition NFT, which raised 119.2 wETH, worth around USD 185,000.
Gavin Gillas, the CEO of Project Venkman, noticed an unauthorized withdrawal for 108.03 wETH (around USD 171,500), preceding a transaction for 1.73 wETH (around USD 2,750).
The NFT Auction Case Is Under Investigation
The wallet included the nearly 800 Ethereum NFTs from the Bill Murray 1,000 project and others he owns through his trading partners. However, the criminals did not steal the assets, which went to other wallets within hours, along with the remaining ones.
Gillas and John Resig, CEO of The Chive, a comedy-entertainment website, said they filed a police report following the attack. Besides hiring blockchain forensics and security firm Chainalysis, they contacted Coinbase NFT concerning the theft.
Chainalysis still investigates the case, but Gillas believes the hackers gained unauthorized access through a drain exploit of the wallet. Those attacks usually occur after the holder inadvertently interacts with a link used for scams.
On many occasions, the wallet holder signs a transaction they believe has a legitimate purpose. However, the victim provides extensive access rights to the tokens, facilitating the theft of those assets. In the summer and the spring, there were similar waves of scams on accounts on social media like Twitter.
However, the hacker may have had access to the wallets differently this time. Gillas said an employee of Project Venkman was also a victim of theft, which the former links to an intercepted computer.
The NFT Auction Aims to Raise Funds for a Girl
The idea of creating the Bill Murray NFT auction emerged to raise funds for the Chive Charities initiative. The money aimed to help a three-year-old girl Evelyn, who suffers the effects of a rare CLDN5 gene mutation.
According to John Resig, the auction runner-up Mishap72 donated 120 ETH to replace the stolen funds. He said they would also give the money for the care of Evelyn if they recovered it.
Resig said they hoped to turn a negative situation into an even better one after the incident. The Chive has launched a GoFundMe page to crowdfund additional donations to help Evelyn, beginning with USD 25,000.
The CEO of The Chive said people might face adversity by standing or crouching. The nature of the theft has led them to decide to be as transparent as possible about what happened.
By Alexander Salazar
