On Thursday, OpenSea, the largest NFT market by daily transactions, reported a data breach via its email provider Customer.io.
The market reported that a Customer.io employee had misused their access by downloading and disclosing customer email information to a third party.
Any consumer who has given the marketplace their email address—whether for the platform or its newsletter—is probably affected by the incident. Following the hack, OpenSea issued a warning to consumers about potential phishing attacks.
In a blog post, the NFT marketplace stated that it is now in communication with law enforcement authorities regarding the breach and that an investigation is ongoing.
OpenSea hit with a string of hacks this year
The most recent data breach this year is by no means the first significant assault on OpenSea and its clients. The popular NFT marketplace's Discord server was breached in May, resulting in a deluge of phishing attempts. The hack resulted in the loss of many user wallets.
One of the worst assaults the exchange has ever seen occurred in January, when a vulnerability allowed hackers to sell NFTs without the owners' consent. Although the marketplace returned around $1.8 million to its clients, it was unclear how much of an overall impact the assault had.
Crypto-linked scams on the rise
Less than a week before the OpenSea's breach, the DeFi protocol Harmony was the victim of another prominent cryptocurrency scam in which roughly $100 million was stolen. Most likely, the renowned North Korean hacker outfit Lazarus was responsible for this attack.
The group is also responsible for many previous crypto-related hacks, most notably the Axie Infinity breach in April that resulted in the loss of tokens valued at over $600 million. The assault represents one of the biggest crypto-related hacks to date.
According to a recent estimate by a blockchain analytics firm, the group may have stolen over $2 billion in total.
