Moonbirds Airdrop Phishing

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Moonbirds

The Moonbirds NFT project suffered an attempted phishing attack. Attackers rebranded an account with 60k followers and used it to promote a supposed airdrop. Victims were taken to another website with a malicious smart contract designed to steal their funds.

It is unclear how successful the attack was. It is possible that no funds were taken, since there may have been a limited overlap in followers between the Moonbirds Twitter and the fake account, and commenting was allowed for most of a day which could have warned others about the scam before they participated.

About Moonbirds

"Moonbirds are more than just an avatar. They're a collection of 10,000 utility-enabled PFPs that feature a richly diverse and unique pool of rarity-powered traits. What's more, each Moonbird unlocks private club membership and additional benefits the longer you hold them. We call it nesting – because, obviously."

"Once inside, you will have exclusive access to Moonbird-related drops, Parliament meetups and IRL events, and access to upcoming PROOF projects; including the PROOF metaverse, codenamed Highrise."

"The money collected by via this Moonbirds project goes to PROOF Holdings, a True Ventures backed Web3 media company that brings together NFT artists and creators."

“We have big plans and this funding will be used solely to expand our team and launch new products — ultimately creating additional value for our community,” the project website says.

"BEWARE of scammers, we don't Instagram, have a public discord, or have any other URL other than http://moonbirds.xyz"

"To celebrate almost 60k followers on our official twitter account, we want to give you the biggest airdrop in the history of the NFT community. To find out more, go to the airdrop page."

"When people started calling out the tweet, they locked people’s ability to reply under the guise of “safety” so nobody else could highlight the scam."

"Birds, we are worried about your safety, and until Elon buys Twitter and stops these crazy scammers, we are closing comments to keep you safe. Will be open in 48 hours."

"The link opened to a fake airdrop page. Few people realized the scam until they read Moonbirds’ verified account and put up a post to beware of the scammers."

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - Moonbirds Airdrop Phishing

Date	Event	Description
April 8th, 2022 3:57:00 PM MDT	Moonbirds Warning Tweet	Moonbirds Tweets a warning "BEWARE of scammers, we don't Instagram, have a public discord, or have any other URL".
April 18th, 2022 6:55:36 PM MDT	Moonbirds #6544 Stolen	The blockchain transaction for the theft of Moonbird #6544.
April 18th, 2022 6:57:25 PM MDT	Moonbirds #6544 Resold	The stolen Moonbird is resold for 18 ETH. The floor price at the time is 18.5 ETH.
April 22nd, 2022	JSuite Blog Post	A blog post covers over the events leading up to the Moonbirds NFT theft, including the Twitter account with 55k followers.
April 22nd, 2022 1:59:00 AM MDT	PeckShield Post Twitter Warning	Peckshield reports on the phishing site.
April 23rd, 2022 10:29:00 PM MDT	Twitter Report to Namecheap	Twitter user CryptoHoward reposts the warning and tags Namecheap's Twitter account.
April 23rd, 2022 10:42:00 PM MDT	Namecheap Suspends Account	Namecheap reports that they have suspended the claim-moonbirds.com domain.
April 25th, 2022 2:19:00 PM MDT	Tweet In MalwareBytes Blog	The timestamp of the tweet in MalwareBytes blog. TBD Unknown timezone.
May 3rd, 2022	MalwareBytes Blog Article	The phishing scam is given special mention in a blog post by MalwareBytes.
May 26th, 2022	Techsprout News Article	An article by Techsprout News reports that a total of 29 Moonbirds NFTs have been stolen. TBD fill in more details.
August 18th, 2022	Journal of Cyber Policy	The incident gets honourable mention in a Journal of Cyber Policy. TBD fill in more.

Total Amount Lost

The total amount lost is unknown.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

The Moonbirds #6544 appears to be blocked from trading on OpenSea due to suspicious activity.

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

General Prevention Policies

Never interact with any project except through that project's official website. Bookmark the official website of every project. Keep the majority of funds offline and never have more funds than necessary in your current active wallet.

Individual Prevention Policies

No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.