A bug in the NFT marketplace OpenSea allowed bad actors to buy approximately $1 million worth of NFTs at huge discount, Reuters reports, citing blockchain analytics firm Elliptic.
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An exploit in the front-end of the marketplace allowed attackers to buy NFTs at prices that they had been listed for in the past without any consent from the owner. As of press time, OpenSea has not made any official statement related to the incident. Tom Robinson, Elliptic Co-Founder, said that the exploit appears to come from the fact that "it was previously possible to re-list an NFT at a new price, without canceling the previous listing."
"Those old listings are now being used to buy NFTs at prices specified in the past — often well below current market prices," Robinson added.
Robinson added that at least one bad actor paid a total of $133,000 for seven NFTs by exploiting the bug. After the attack, he then quickly sold the NFTs for $934,000. He added that even though many wallets used by attackers are anonymous, it is still possible to identify them if they use an exchange to cash out into fiat currency.
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