What happened
CityDAO, an Ethereum project that sells NFT-based land in Wyoming, lost members' funds on January 10, 2022. An attacker hijacked the Discord account of the administrator Lyons800 and advertised a fake "land drop." Members who connected their wallets to the linked phishing site approved transactions that sent assets to the attacker, whose wallet received 29.67 ETH (about $95,000) within a day. No CityDAO smart contract was exploited.
According to Vice, the attacker first posted a fake screenshot accusing Lyons800 of scamming. When Lyons800 agreed to a voice call to clear his name, the attacker talked him into sharing browser console access, which exposed his Discord authentication token. CityDAO then posted a warning on Twitter that there was no land drop and that users should not connect their wallets. Lyons800 called the incident "a ridiculous security breach from Discord." Vice reported that part of the stolen ETH was sent to Tornado Cash.
Attacker wallet: 0xa6964e26b6e49510934164ceab2dd73fd397509f
How it happened
- The attacker used a fake scam accusation and a voice call to get administrator Lyons800 to share browser console access, which exposed his Discord authentication token.
- Using the hijacked admin account, the attacker ran a webhook attack that posted announcements for a fake CityDAO "land drop" in the server's channels.
- The announcements linked to a phishing site that asked members to connect their wallets to claim the drop.
- Members approved transactions on the site that sent their assets to the attacker. The attacker's wallet received 29.67 ETH within a day.
Protocol details
Evidence
- report twitter.com page 148090…1924 twitter.com
- report Report hacked.slowmist.io
- analysis DeFiLlama defillama.com
- analysis 'Blockchain City' CityDAO Falls Victim to $95K Hack via Discord coindesk.com
- analysis Explained: The CityDAO Hack (January 2022) halborn.com
- analysis People Building 'Blockchain City' in Wyoming Scammed by Hackers vice.com
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