The NFT economy has been spreading wings at a pace no one had imagined. This, however, has multiplied the threats NFT buyers and projects have been facing, making them utterly apprehensive of all their investments getting washed out. An emerging menace they have been encountering is hacking Discord accounts.

Traction that NFT projects have garnered has been mind-boggling. In 2021, NFT marketplaces like OpenSea exceeded the benchmark volume by more than 20%. Solana-based NFT saw $53 million in sales on NFT products in December alone. This is January 2022 and buyers are thronging NFT marketplaces, minting, storing, or NFTs these tokens. 

Unfortunately, there are rogues casting their evil eye on the bustling marketplaces. Hackers have become sophisticated enough to find loopholes in the NFT architecture and escape with the booty. They know how to hack a Discord Server and you have to be on tip of your toes. Recent hacking instances that occurred on Discord simply point out the looming threat. 

What is a Discord Channel?

Discord is an interactive forum where members can find all needed information regarding a topic/event and also go for detailed interaction. Discord of an NFT project is an interactive forum where artists, developers, and investors converse about various relevant topics.

Fractal Fiasco

Discord server of an NFT project was hacked, and scammers stole $150K worth of crypto. NFT aficionados looking to get a limited-edition NFT from Fractal, an upcoming marketplace for game item NFTs, were up for a surprise when they found a link shared through the project’s Discord channel was actually doled out by scammers to capture their crypto.

Many unsuspecting users followed the link to connect their wallet, so that they could receive an NFT. What happened was just the opposite. They found their holdings of Solana (SOL) transferred to the scammer. The value was later estimated to be around $150,000. 

Fractal fiasco reminded everyone of the grave threat.

Loopholes Used by Hackers

In the case of Fractal, what hackers did was to gain access to their webhooks. The webhooks trigger event responses after listening to messages sent. Several web applications, including Discord, use Webhooks. By gaining access to the webhooks, hackers could send broadcast messages to community members.

Some say that the community members could have suspected the scam, and others say the scam happened due to the zealous anticipation of rewards. Whatever, it again underlined the extent to which Discord servers are facing the threat of hacking.

Common vulnerabilities in NFT-related fraudulent activities include the creation of unauthorized NFTs, hacking of Discord accounts and coding errors, among others. Other loopholes include coding errors and accessibility.

How Hackers find access to Discord Accounts

“My discord is hacked; but how did they manage to do that?” The most common method of hacking a discord account is using the bot’s token and gaining access to the account’s login details. With knowledge regarding how to hack Discord bots, they become a severe threat.

Hackers have also learnt to bypass two-factor authentication and succeed in hacking discord accounts. 

Two-way authentication is a tool for top-notch security for accounts to prevent hacking. You might have seen two-way authentication in Google authenticator and other apps.

The process requires the provision of details only owners have. For example, you may be required to input OTPs sent to your mail or phone number for verification. In some instances, you may be answering questions only you can answer. In short, two-way authentication provides double security layers for your account.

Despite this supposedly hard-to-crack security measure, hackers have been able to get into Discord accounts. This is how they generally manage to bypass 2FA.

• A scammer targets a team member, finding their way into the server where the targeted member is
• The scammer impersonates the target member, prompting Discord to ban them.
• Following the ban, the scammer reaches out to the banned team member, presenting themselves as MOD.
• The scammer asks the banned team member to prove their innocence.
• The member is then asked to reveal their inspect element, which has all the information the scammers need to fully control the target’s account.

Hackers have become smart and they know well now how to hack a Discord server. 

Due Diligence: A solution to NFT challenges

There are people attempting to hack Discord servers and you need to know how to block their designs. Due diligence ensures all factors related to a given agreement are thoroughly examined before going ahead with it. The exercise aims to guarantee the authenticity of the decision taken pertaining to NFT projects, thus maximizing the value in transactions.

Moreover, Due Diligence helps in preventing NFT counterfeiting i.e. it stops the minting of NFTs in owners’ wallets without the owner’s permission.

Turning out to be an effective tool to prevent thieves from hacking Discord servers, Due Diligence helps patch up code errors that might otherwise prove to be costly. 

Do your Due Diligence to ensure the accessibility of virtual assets. If the accessibility of virtual assets is corrupted, the buyers lose access. To negate this, Due diligence provides for smart contracts hosting virtual assets in accessible formats.

Checking gaps in the minting process is also part of Due Diligence. The team conducting Due Diligence checks the process threadbare to ensure minting is occurring in a secure manner. 

Must Read: Beginners Guide to Smart Contract Auditing: Part 1

What to do if your Discord account is hacked

If your account is hacked despite all your precautions, we’ll advise you to log into your account and change your password immediately. However, in most cases, hackers change your password immediately after hacking your discord account. So, count yourself lucky if your password is not changed.

That said, after changing your password, report the hacked account. You can do this here by filling online forms, after which you can wait for a response from Discord. How to recover a hacked Discord account is a process everyone on a server needs to know.

Move on to your PayPal account linked to your Discord and search for suspicious activity. If you find any, head on to PayPal’s resolution center to report the compromised account.

Also, you can visit the preapproved payments page and remove Discord if it appears. With this, you are preventing further transactions from Discord.

Follow these steps to prevent further Discord transactions and recover your hacked Discord account.

Wrapping up

Recent hacking of Fractal’s official Discord account has underlined the threat posed by hackers to NFT projects and buyers. The only way projects can prevent hacking is Due Diligence that helps them to prevent NFT counterfeiting, code patch-up, check gaps in the minting process, and ensure accessibility of virtual assets. If you haven’t yet conducted Due Diligence, better do it or it might be just too late. 

Due Diligence lies at the core of successful NFT projects. To conduct Due Diligence with clinical efficiency, you need professionals who have the technical wherewithal to perform the job with aplomb. A pioneer in the security of NFT projects, QuillAudits is well-versed with the attack vectors in the ecosystem and the optimum solutions out there. 

Comprehensive assessment of the NFT code base conducted by our team ensures security of your projects from the cyber thieves who are just round the corner waiting to sneak in on getting a whiff of a loophole.

Reach out to QuillAudits

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Source: https://blog.quillhash.com/2022/01/21/discord-hack-emerging-threat-to-nft-transactions/