The altcoin Ethereum wallet, controlled by the business partners of actor and comedian Bill Murray, was hacked last night. Here are the details…
Bill Murray’s altcoin investments stolen
Around $174,000 worth of Wrapped Ethereum was stolen, which is almost all of the funds raised in Murray’s recent NFT charity auction. According to Murray’s partners at The Chive and Project Venkman, the Ethereum wallet tied to actor and comedian Bill Murray, which was used to sell official NFTs inspired by his life, was hacked last night, following the conclusion of a charity auction this week.
As a result, around 110 Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) worth about $174,000 was stolen from the wallet during the attack. The funds were stolen from the wallet following an auction of a private, single NFT that raised $119.2 WETH on Coinbase NFT this week, or about $185,000 at the time of the sale. All funds were for charitable purposes. Gavin Gillas of Murray co-owned blockchain startup Project Venkman noticed an unauthorized transaction last night that removed 108.03 WETH (about $171,500) from the wallet, followed by another for 1.73 WETH (about $2,750). told. Gillis confirmed that these were the only transactions where WETH was stolen.
The wallet also contained approximately 800 Ethereum NFTs from the Bill Murray 1,000 project, which will be sold next week, along with other NFTs Murray has through his business partners, including CryptoPunks, VeeFriends, and Damien Hirst artwork. None of the NFTs were stolen, and all the remaining Bill Murray 1,000 NFTs – along with those from other projects – were moved to other wallets in the hours that followed.
Chainalysis kicks in
Gillas and John Resig, CEO of The Chive, a comedy and entertainment site backed by Murray, said they filed a police report after the attack and quickly deployed the services of Blockchain forensics and security firm Chainalysis. They also contacted Coinbase NFT regarding the theft. “We got Chainalysis up and running within 10 minutes of learning about the attack last night,” Gillas said. “They will have a larger report on this and they are still investigating all the issues.”
The Chainalysis investigation is ongoing, but Gillas believes the attackers gained unauthorized access through a wallet-consuming exploit. These types of attacks typically occur after the wallet owner accidentally interacts with a link used for fraudulent purposes. In most cases, the wallet owner signs a transaction they believe is for a legitimate purpose. However, it actually gives broad access rights to the wallet’s tokens and can be used to steal these assets. As cryptokoin.com reported, a similar wave of scams broke out in the spring and summer using hacked Twitter accounts, among other tools.
Fundraising for stolen funds
However, in this case, the attacker may have a different entry point. Gillas said a Project Venkman employee emptied his wallet yesterday, which Gillas theory could link to a hijacked work computer. The Bill Murray NFT auction, which concluded Wednesday, was created to raise money for the Chive Charities initiative. The money has been earmarked to support the care of a three-year-old girl named Evelyn, whom Resig says is struggling with the effects of a rare CLDN5 gene mutation along with intractable epilepsy.
While ETH funds paid for by auction winner Brant Boersma have been stolen, someone has already taken action to replace the donation. Resig said the second bidder donated 120 ETH in lieu of funds for the child’s medical care. If the hacked funds are recovered, they will also be donated to Evelyn’s care. In the hopes of turning a bad situation into a more positive one than before, Resig started a GoFundMe page to raise additional donations to help Chive, Evelyn, with an initial goal of $25,000.
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