Bill Murray’s Ethereum Wallet Hacked For 110 ETH ($174,000)

On September 2, Hollywood actor Bill Murray’s ethereum wallet after his NFT charity auction was hacked. Hackers took away $174,000, almost all of the money raised through the auction.

Following the conclusion of a charity auction this week, an attack occurred on the Ethereum wallet connected to actor and comedian Bill Murray, which is being used to sell authentic NFTs based on his life. Murray’s associates at The Chive and Project Venkman inform Decrypt about the attack.

In the end, around 110 Wrapped Ethereum (WETH), worth roughly $174,000 at the time of the hack, were taken from the wallet. Following this week’s auction of an exclusive, one-of-a-kind NFT on Coinbase NFT, which brought in 119.2 WETH, or roughly $185,000 at the time of sale, the funds were taken from the wallet. All funds were intended for charitable purposes.

Gavin Gillas of blockchain startup Project Venkman, which Murray co-owns, told Decrypt that he first noticed an unauthorized transaction removing 108.03 WETH (about $171,500) from the wallet last night, followed by another transaction for 1.73 WETH (about $2,750). Those were the only transactions in which WETH was stolen, Gillis confirmed.

The wallet also contained other NFTs that Murray owns through his business partners, such as CryptoPunks, VeeFriends, and Damien Hirst artwork, as well as the approximately 800 Ethereum NFTs from the Bill Murray 1,000 project that are scheduled for sale the next week.

None of the NFTs were taken, and in the hours that followed, all of the remaining Bill Murray 1,000 NFTs as well as those from other projects were transferred into different wallets.

Following the incident, Gillas and John Resig, CEO of the comedy and entertainment website The Chive (supported by Murray), informed Decrypt that they had filed a police report and had promptly hired Chainalysis, a blockchain forensics and security company. They also communicated with Coinbase NFT regarding the theft.

“We engaged Chainalysis within 10 minutes of learning of the attack last night,(…). They’ll have a bigger report on that, and they’re still investigating all of the threads.”

Gillas told Decrypt

The Chainalysis investigation remains ongoing, but Gillas believes that the attackers gained unauthorized access through a wallet-draining exploit. Such attacks typically occur after the wallet holder inadvertently interacts with a link that is used to perpetrate scams.

The attacker might have had a different entry point in this case, however. Gillas said that a Project Venkman employee had his wallet drained yesterday, as well, which Gillas theorized could tie the exploit to a hijacked work computer.

The Bill Murray NFT auction, completed on Wednesday, was created to raise funds for the Chive Charities initiative. The money was earmarked to support the care of a three-year-old girl named Evelyn, who Resig said is contending with the effects of a rare CLDN5 gene mutation, along with intractable epilepsy.

DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.

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