KEY POINTS

  • Bill Murray's NFTs went on sale a few days ago
  • The actor made around $185,000 from the NFT charity auction
  • Unfortunately, almost all of the funds raised were stolen

American actor and comedian Bill Murray is the latest victim of cyber criminals who stole nearly all the funds raised in his recent NFT charity auction.

Just a few hours after the Bill Murray NFT charity auction that raised 119.2 ETH or approximately $185,000, nearly all of it was gone as malicious actors stole it. On-chain data from Etherscan revealed that the malicious actor started draining Murray's wallet around 7 p.m. ET on Thursday.

Based on the data, as well as the information provided by the actor's team, the hackers stole approximately $174,000 worth of Wrapped Ethereum, which is equivalent to almost all of the funds raised through the actor's most recent NFT charity auction. The cybercriminals also tried stealing 800 NFTs from the Bill Murray 1,000 project, scheduled to be sold next week.

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However, the heist did not materialize then as the security team from the NFT consultancy firm Project Venkman, which Murray co-owns, already intervened. The team immediately moved the actor's prized NFTs, including two CryptoPunks, a Damien Hirst NFT, a Cool Car, a Pudgy Penguin and multiple Flower Girls to a couple of safehouse wallets.

Gavin Gillas, CEO of Project Venkman, shared that he noticed an unauthorized transaction of 108.3 WETH (about $171,500) were removed from the actor's wallet, followed by a 1.73 WETH transaction (around $2,750). The malicious actor then moved the stolen funds to a wallet address linked to the cryptocurrency exchange Binance and Unionchain.ai, Murray's team confirmed.

The team also said that they have already filed a police report and are currently working with the cryptocurrency analytics firm Chainalysis. "We engaged Chainalysis within 10 minutes of learning of the attack last night," Gillas revealed. "They'll have a bigger report on that, and they're still investigating all of the threads," he added.

While Chainalysis has not yet released its findings, Gillas thinks the attackers used a wallet-draining exploit to siphon the funds. The stolen funds were intended for Chive Charities and fortunately, a runner-up in the auction who goes by the username Mishap72 has sent 120 ETh or around $187,500 to replace the amount.

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