The CEO of The Sandbox, Arthur Madrid, fell victim to a hacking incident on his Twitter account, as revealed in a post shared by Madrid himself after successfully regaining control. The attacker exploited Madrid’s account to promote a fraudulent “airdrop” phishing scam.
In his post, Madrid cautioned Sandbox users to exercise caution and refrain from clicking on any suspicious links promoting airdrops. He emphasized the importance of verifying the authenticity of URLs, advising users to ensure they match the official Sandbox website’s URL/domain name: http://sandbox.game.
Four hours prior to Madrid’s post, The Sandbox’s official Twitter account issued a warning regarding a scammer who had commandeered the account. The imposter had been promoting a scam/phishing link for a counterfeit SAND token airdrop. The warning included a screenshot of the fraudulent post, enticing users to check their eligibility and claim the airdrop on a website with a distinct URL from the genuine one.
The Sandbox team swiftly took action, assuring their followers that they were actively working to shut down the scam site and rectify the situation as soon as possible.
As of 8:26 pm UTC, it appears that the alleged scam site has been taken down, resulting in a 404 error page.
Phishing attacks have unfortunately become a recurring issue within the cryptocurrency community. On May 19, a scam service known as “Inferno Drainer” was discovered operating on Telegram, recruiting website builders to create numerous phishing scam sites. By the time it was uncovered, the operation had reportedly pilfered almost $6 million from unsuspecting users.
According to a report by cybersecurity firm Kaspersky in April 2023, such attacks saw a 40% surge in 2022 compared to the previous year, underscoring the growing threat posed by these malicious activities.
