Owning a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT puts a target on your back for scammers and hackers, especially if you’re high profile. Steven Galanis, the co-founder and CEO of the Cameo app, was victim to a crypto hack on Saturday, according to Gelanis, resulting in the loss of several NFTs, including a Bored Ape, and over $70,000-worth of cryptocurrency.
All up, over $200,000-worth of crypto assets were taken. Gelanis’ Bored Ape, which records show he bought for $319,000 in January, was stolen and immediately sold for $130,000. In addition to several other NFTs, including a few Otherdeed land NFTs for Yuga Labs’ upcoming Bored Ape Yacht Club metaverse game. Gelanis was also robbed of $69,000-worth of the Ape Coin cryptocurrency and just under $4,000 in ether.
Cameo is an app that allows you to buy personalized video messages from thousands of celebrities, such as Caitlyn Jenner, Lindsay Lohan and Ice T. Cameo was a hit during the first year of COVID, generating over $100 million in 2020, though it cut 25% of its workforce back in May.
Gelanis said on Twitter that his crypto wallet was hacked through his Apple iCloud account. He offered no more details, but it wouldn’t be the first time. In April, it was discovered that using the MetaMask wallet on an iPhone automatically leads to your seed phrase, the 12-word password required to log into a crypto wallet, to be backed up on the attached iCloud account. Accessing someone’s iCloud can mean accessing their seed phrase, which gives complete control of the related crypto wallet account. In April, a man lost $650,000-worth of crypto and NFTs due to having his iCloud compromised.
“Already $650,000 stolen from a single individual and it’s going to happen to a lot more people,” a blockchain investigator wrote at the time.
