Bored Ape Yacht Club Warns of Compromised Discord Server

Yuga Labs, the blockchain startup behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection has warned its NFT community not to fall victim to cybercrime following the hack of its Discord server. Seeing it is the first of April, generally known around the world as April Fool’s Day, the Bored Ape team had to mention to its community that the tweet is not a prank, in a bid to draw seriousness across the board.

“STAY SAFE. Do not mint anything from any Discord right now. A webhook in our Discord was briefly compromised. We caught it immediately but please know: we are not doing any April Fools stealth mints/airdrops etc. Other Discords are also being attacked right now,” the tweet reads.

STAY SAFE. Do not mint anything from any Discord right now. A webhook in our Discord was briefly compromised. We caught it immediately but please know: we are not doing any April Fools stealth mints / airdrops etc. Other Discords are also being attacked right now.

— Bored Ape Yacht Club 🍌 (@BoredApeYC) April 1, 2022

Additional details of the exploit have not been revealed, however, it is believed that the attacker was able to mint at least a Bored Ape after gaining access to the server that hosts members of Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, and Mutant Ape Kennel Club – the three NFT collections from Yuga Labs. 

Growing Attack on NFT Protocols

The attack does not come as a surprise, as cybercriminals have been targeting prestigious Non-Fungible Token and Decentralized Finance protocols in the past year. The positive outlook of the Bored Ape, per its rising floor price which is currently pegged around 111 ETH, and the positive perks being introduced by Yuga Labs such as its movie plans and the 10,000 ApeCoin (APE) tokens distributed to the NFT holders in the past week.

The attack on the Bored Ape Discord server did not come as the very first, as other renowned NFT collections have also faced similar compromises in the past. One of these is the Doodles NFT collection. The incessant attack on these protocols is proof that there is a high level of security unwholesomeness in the design of these platforms.

Oftentimes, the attacks on these protocols are often prevented by security experts and prompt intervention by the developers behind the targeted projects like Yuga Labs did is often able to minimize the impact.