OpenSea CEO Clarifies Phishing Attack Did Not Originate on Platform

OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer clarified that the recent phishing attack that saw $1.7 million stolen did not originate from the platform. The team is investigating the matter to locate the source of the attack.

Co-founder and CEO of NFT marketplace OpenSea, Devin Finzer, has provided an update on the recent phishing attack. In a Twitter thread on Feb 20, Finzer spoke about the recent reports of the attack originating on OpenSea and clarified that it did not in fact start on OpenSea.

Finzer was very clear about the circumstances surrounding the attack, in which some users lost a total of $1.7 million from the popular NFT platform. The CEO pointed to several methods that were not vectors for attack, including interaction with an OpenSea email; minting, buying, and selling on the platform causing the listing migration tool; and clicking on the site’s banner.

Having said that, Finzer revealed that the platform was working with the victims of the theft to narrow down the source of the attack which could have been responsible for the malicious signatures. The team’s investigation continues to take place and provided some updates on its Twitter page.

OpenSea said that there were 17 individuals who were affected and that the attacker is no longer active. The malicious contract has not seen any activity in the past 15 hours. OpenSea and its executives have urged users not to click links outside of OpenSea.io.

OpenSea going through a rough patch

The OpenSea platform has been hit with a string of negative incidents in the past few months. It remains the most popular NFT platform, despite these incidents. A recent UI bug led to over $1.1 million worth of NFTs bought for very low prices.

But the platform has also had some security issues. Perhaps the most serious of them all was the theft of $1.3 million worth of NFTs due to a bug. Bored Ape NFTs have also been stolen, which led to the marketplace freezing transactions, which subsequently drew a lot of criticism from the crypto community.

Security has become a top priority for the NFT sub-sector following these incidents. The attacks have been growing in number because of the amount of capital flowing in, as it takes hold of the public’s consciousness.