🚨If you've shared an email address with NFT marketplace OpenSea, you'll probably start getting some phishing emails soon.
The NFT marketplace noted that it has reported the incident to law enforcement officials and that an inquiry is underway.
On June 28, OpenSea said that an employee of its email delivery vendor Customer.io has misused employee access to share email addresses with an "unauthorized third party." These are addresses that OpenSea users and subscribers to the company's newsletter shared with OpenSea.
An employee of our email vendor, https://t.co/6vM4WAcJal, misused their employee access to download & share email addresses with an unauthorized external party.
— OpenSea (@opensea) June 30, 2022
Email addresses provided to OpenSea by users or newsletter subscribers were impacted.https://t.co/Osb6qqkqZZ
New York-based OpenSea NFT Marketplace said there may be a “heightened likelihood” for email phishing attempts targeting people whose data has been leaked. Phishing attacks involve tricking victims via email into downloading malware or handing over their login details. According OpenSea’s website, it has more than 600,000 users. NFT spending reached $40bn last year from just $100m in 2020, although the rate of growth has slowed markedly amid a heavy crypto downturn.
The digital asset market has been hammered in recent weeks, with the cornerstone cryptocurrency, bitcoin, slipping back below $20,000 on Thursday – compared with a peak of nearly $69,000 in November last year.
BREAKING NEWS » @BoredApeYC Members Are Receiving An Email From @opensea That Says Their Ape Has Been Delisted From The Platform For Going Agaisnt @opensea’s Terms Of Service.
— The Bored Ape Gazette🍌 (@BoredApeGazette) June 29, 2022
Stay tuned for updates pic.twitter.com/lFTokcrRbq
In March, Hubspot, a comparable service to Customer.io, was hacked, exposing customers’ usernames, phone numbers and emails on BlockFi, Swan Bitcoin, NYDIG and Circle. Customers of these platforms had their names, phone numbers and email addresses released to an unknown party.
OpenSea warned that hackers may attempt to contact OpenSea customers through emails from domains that appear similar to OpenSea.io or OpenSea.xyz. Users on Twitter have reported an increase in spam emails, phone calls and text messages.