NFT marketplace OpenSea had some serious security flaws
Read permissions carefully before agreeing to NFTs, warn researchers
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Cybersecurityresearchers have helped fix security flaws on theOpenSea NFT marketplacethat could have been exploited by attackers to hijack users’cryptocurrency wallets.
Check Point (CP) researchers unearthed the critical security issues on one of the world’s largest NFT marketplace after spotting reports of people claiming to have all their cryptos stolen after receiving a free gift on the platform.
“Such examples, along with others thatreporteddifferent scams within this marketplace motivated our researchers to look (and find!) vulnerabilities within the platform, which could have allowed scammers and hackers to hijack accounts and steal thecrypto currenciesfrom the digital wallets,”shareCP researchers Dikla Barda, Roman Zaikin & Oded Vanunu in a joint blog post.
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The researchers add that OpenSea was responsive to their queries and collaborated with the researchers to help seal off all attack vectors.
Engineering impatience
OpenSea allows anyone to create art, in one of several popular multimedia formats, and sell them on its marketplace.
The researchers used this to create an art in SVG format with a malicious payload that enabled them to communicate with the platform’s default cryptocurrency wallet, MetaMask.
Engadgetreports that the attack relied on user inattention and the fact that OpenSea already generates a lot of pop-ups. The attack worked by sending a malicious NFT to the victim, which when opened triggered several pop-ups including one requesting access to the victim’s cryptocurrency wallet.
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“You should always be careful when receiving requests to sign your wallet online. Before you approve a request; you should carefully review what is being requested and consider whether the request is abnormal or suspicious,” warn the users, advising users to reject any requests that seem even mildly suspicious.
ViaEngadget
With almost two decades of writing and reporting on Linux, Mayank Sharma would like everyone to think he’sTechRadar Pro’sexpert on the topic. Of course, he’s just as interested in other computing topics, particularly cybersecurity, cloud, containers, and coding.
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