CREATURETOADZ

DESCRIPTION OF EVENTS

"8,888 CreatureToadz out CROAKing in the wild!" "I'm a lifelong designer and visual artist that has an unhealthy obsession with colors. CreatureToadz is my love letter to crypto - years of passion built up from the sidelines. I hope you love it as much as I do."

"CreatureToadz is the first crossover project between two successful NFT communities, Creatures and CrypToadz. The art was made from scratch to ensure perfect stylistic marriage between the two." "No details were spared, I poured my soul into bringing these species together."

"As the first true crossover project between two breakout NFT projects, CreatureToadz will serve as a testament for the potential of NFTs to bring communities together. As such, we will play a role in the evolution of NFTs and community building."

"On October 19, 2021 CreatureToadz NFT discord moderator account was compromised using an unidentifed technique involving screen sharing and a leaked Webhook URL. The compromised account was used to direct users to a phishing site and steal $300K worth of ETH."

"The scammer used a Webhook to create a URL to send msgs to the Discord." "[W]hat we speculate is that it was more than likely an operational error (by a moderator) in which a hacker was able to configure a way to access the Discord through a phishing webhook via a shared screen. A (non-phishing) webhook is a reverse API that sends data to the Discord - for example: If you want tweets sent to a Discord channel you can create a webhook for that."

"A scammer had taken control of the CT discord, posted fake announcements luring ppl to a scam website were they could mint their nft. However the site actually stole their ETH." "Nobody's account needs to be compromised to do a "hack" like @CreatureToadz's. All that happened was a webhook URL leaked. With a Discord webhook, you can post any message on any channel. It is considerably easier to leak this URL than an entire account."

"The Webhook+scam .NET site template seems to originate from a Discord community named 'BabyGoth's BLA'." "The scam was possible because WebHooks were enabled on mod level or higher. This allowed the scammer to send the fake announcements."

"One of the moderators got compromised. We trusted him, he's a moderator in many Discord servers. And, as a new community, we needed help. Here's a screenshot of the audit log. This happened in several other discords tonite."

"Amazingly, while hosting a Twitter Spaces chat, moderators identified the attacker who was also in the chat and gave a lengthy interview."

"From what we understand the hacker was able to announce a mint page to the entire Creature Toadz Discord and the community rushed to mint on a fake address not knowing that it was a fake mint URL." "The ppl that were tricked still had to approve the Tx though." "Around 90 ETH was taken during this Discord hack."

"@VGF.eth & myself started tracking the scammer's wallet, which let to multiple other wallets, which were funded through a crypto exchange. VGF found his ROBLOX account & found his twitter account. Wombo-combo, great teamwork."

"This hack has been planned for around 20-30 days. It has been made known that the hacker's first transaction is through Binance (which you have to use a social security number through) and there are multiple people who know who the hacker is so the chickens are coming home to roost soon."

"After finding his twitter account I quoted his one (and only) tweet in Spaces. The tweet was an obviously troll tweet saying that once [he] "got his 100k bag he'd stop j*rking off". This seemed insignificant to share but" "Approx. 10 mins later that tweet was deleted from that twitter! Which indicated to me that the scammer was most likely in the Spaces w/ us. Listening to what we were doing"

"Realizing this I spoke directly to him, I said something along the lines: "If you're here. PLZ return the funds. That DeFi hacker that stole 600mill, returned it all, so can you. You can still return the 87.7E. Do the right thing."

"The attacker promptly returned all of the stolen funds after the discovery." "In an insane turn of events, the hacker has returned all the money he stole!!! This is one of the craziest nights of my life. All the affected will be refunded fully in ETH."

"It was a long shot. But within the hour he returned ALL THE $ETH to the creator @skiranoETH. Not saying my little speech convinced him. Likely he was scared shitless for the consequences. Still the result is the same, ppl got their money back! Which is what matters :)"

"After the stolen funds were returned I spoke out to him again. I said that I'd like to hear his side of the story & why he returned the funds. "DM me if you're here. Let me know if you want to come up and speak. I won't dox you"."

"He DM'd me using the twitter account we found earlier. He came up & shared his pov: It was all a joke, he was bored, he was gonna return the stolen funds all along."

"After the hack, the attacker decided it was a good idea to jump into a Twitter space with journalist Andrew Wang. In the Spaces, the NFT community discovered that the hacker was a 17-year-old teen who had school tomorrow and explained that one of the reasons he did it was because he was bored. Because the hacker also used a lot of offensive language during the hosted Twitter spaces Andrew Wang commented on the Twitter Spaces, saying, “I just wanted to apologize again to anyone who was hurt or offended by the spaces tonight. It was a situation I never expected to handle.”"

"HEERR, whose real name is still unknown, joined in as a speaker and incriminated himself for the Discord hack. Claiming to be a 17-year-old high school male student, the hacker said, “it was a joke,” and that the original plan was to return the funds."

"OKHotshot told Crypto Briefing that he did not believe the hacker did this as a joke or a mere stunt." He said that “claiming innocence is the only way out to avoid legal troubles” before adding that he was “going to nail his real-world identity regardless of their admittance.”

"The creator joined & was understandably upset. But since the scammer returned the funds he said he won't press charges. AFAIK it was the first time that a scammer & project creator were in a spaces talking like this."

"Credit to @VGFreakXBL @andrwwang and other community members for making this possible. The funds were recovered. A bad thing happened, then a good thing happened."

CreatureToadz was a popular NFT project. Using a WebHook, Discord users were redirected to a fake mint page, which convinced them to send funds to the attacker.

After being tracked down, the attacker returned the funds and had a lengthy interview.

HOW COULD THIS HAVE BEEN PREVENTED?

Never click links directly from a discord channel. Always go through the official website.

Projects need to pick their moderator teams with care, train them, and not give them any unnecessary permission levels.

Check Our Framework For Safe Secure Exchange Platforms

No Title (Jan 10)
https://opensea.io/collection/creaturetoadz (Jan 27)
CROAK! (Jan 27)
CreatureToadz Ran Up HUGE Numbers - Less Than 1 Week On, Will It Hold a High Price Floor? - YouTube (Jan 27)
@CreatureToadz Twitter (Jan 27)
@NFTherder Twitter (Jan 27)
@NFTherder Twitter (Jan 27)
Creature Toadz Hacked (Jan 27)
Address 0xf850380c7e9a11e5a1ee65a4c24947de2286524f | Etherscan (Jan 27)
@NFTherder Twitter (Jan 27)
17 Year Old Hacker Steals $300K+ (88 ETH) and Gives It Back - Joins Twitter Spaces To Say Why - YouTube (Jan 27)
Ethereum Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Etherscan (Jan 27)
@fiveoutofnine Twitter (Jan 27)
@CreatureToadz Twitter (Jan 27)
Creature Toadz Hack Twitter Space - YouTube (Jan 27)
Hacker Admits to Stealing 88 ETH in NFT Scam, Then Returns It - Crypto Briefing (Jan 27)
@Tatemae18 Twitter (Jan 27)
17 year old hacker returns $340,000 after hacking into CreatureToadz - Cryptonary (Jan 27)
NFT thief returns 88 ETH ($368,000) after stealing from CreatureToadz | CryptoSlate (Jan 27)
CreatureToadz | DappRadar (Jan 27)
Redlion News (Feb 1)

More case studies

WeDEX Flash
Loan Attack

NBA Top Shot
Discord Phishing