DStv Twitter account promotes crypto scam
At least two Twitter accounts belonging to MultiChoice were used to promote an NFT scam, including its primary DStv account.
The DStv Twitter account’s advertisement was spotted by Riccardo “Fluffypony” Spagni, former Monero lead maintainer and resident South African crypto mogul.
“Welcome to the Boldape,” the advert states.
“The BoldApe collection is constantly being developed and its applications are constantly increased. The first [2][2][2] Boldape are FREE.”
Another less prominent MultiChoice account (@MultiChoiceGRP) posted a similar advertisement last week.
Much better worded, it tried to create the impression that MultiChoice was entering the realm of decentralised finance.
“We are working on a number of new products and services that will allow our members to take advantage of the power of Web3.”
The ad was spotted by the founder and board member of the charitable cause platform Forgood, Andy Hadfield. Htxt first reported it.
DStv Twitter account advertising scam site targeting people interested in the “Bold Ape Jacksons” free NFT mint.
MyBroadband’s investigation showed that there appears to be a legitimate Bold Ape non-fungible token (NFT) project.
However, MultiChoice’s accounts were being used to promote an attack site targeting people who may be interested in the legitimate one.
NFTs are a type of crypto token on blockchains that can represent arbitrary data. The best-known examples are so-called profile picture (PFP) NFTs like Cryptopunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club.
During the last crypto craze that peaked in 2021, these types of NFTs exploded in value, with some selling for millions of rands.
Celebrities including Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton, Seth Green, Madonna, and Justin Bieber bought into the craze.
When prices came crashing down, many of them became the target of a proposed class-action lawsuit.
The lawsuit was recently amended with allegations that Bored Ape Yacht Club developer Yuga Labs colluded with respected fine arts broker Sotheby’s to run a deceptive auction.
Despite the market downturn, several new NFT projects are regularly being launched.
Although extremely niche, scammers target these launches by setting up attack sites and promoting them on social media, especially Twitter, Discord, and YouTube.
These attack sites usually aim to trick users into giving scammers access to funds in victims’ crypto wallets.
MyBroadband’s analysis of the scam promoted by DStv’s Twitter account indicated that this was precisely what it was doing.
Visiting the attack site immediately prompts you to connect your Web3 crypto wallet.
Once connected, the site automatically initiates a transaction to increase the spending limit for a valuable crypto token — in this case, Liquid Staked Ether.
This illustrates how well-targeted these attacks are. The attackers know that the typical NFT market participant is probably also staking their ether (the Ethereum blockchain’s native cryptocurrency).
Rather than just going for the native ether in your wallet, their first target is your staked ether.
Attack site built to look like the actual Bold Apes website. It tries to trick you into giving it access to valuable tokens in your “Web3” crypto wallet.
MyBroadband’s investigation also revealed that there appears to be a legitimate Bold Ape project.
Navigating to its website — boldape.pro — returned a server error that pointed to its public mint on NFT marketplace OpenSea.
Rather than click the link, we navigated to OpenSea directly and searched for the project’s first NFT collection named “Bold Ape Jacksons”. The collection was indeed on OpenSea and in the middle of a public mint.
“Minting” refers to the process of distributing a collection of NFTs to the market.
Often, NFT creators charge a price for minting tokens in their collection. In this case, the Bold Ape Jacksons were free, and buyers only had to cover their transaction fees.
MyBroadband tested the Bold Ape Jacksons mint and received two free NFTs after paying the transaction fee.
The NFTs are hosted on the Polygon blockchain, not Ethereum, making the transaction fees negligible.
Between the time our investigation began and publication, all of the NFTs in the collection that were made available for the public mint had been claimed.
Scammers often capitalise on NFT mints to try and trick people into giving their attacks sites access to their funds.
If crypto scammers are sharks, then a free mint is like chum.
Those considering participating in events like NFT mints must be on high alert in the period leading up to the big day to avoid falling prey to a scam.
MyBroadband contacted MultiChoice for comment, and it provided the following statement:
“MultiChoice is aware that an advert from an unknown source was posted to some of its social media pages advertising an alleged NFT scam. Our teams are working diligently to investigate this incident and want to assure our customers that we always strive for the highest value of security and will communicate any updates in due time.”
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