Popular Crypto Data Sites Targeted With Phishing Attack

Etherscan, CoinGecko and other sites displayed a suspicious pop-up asking users to connect their wallets.

AccessTimeIconMay 13, 2022 at 10:07 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 5:31 p.m. UTC

Crypto data websites Etherscan, CoinGecko and others reported incidents of a malicious pop-up prompting users to connect their MetaMask wallets.

The phishing attack appears to come from a domain displaying the Bored Ape Yacht Club logo. As of press time, the site tied to the domain appeared to be taken down. According to a WHOIS lookup, the domain was registered Friday around 3 p.m. ET.

"We are investigating the root cause of this attack to fix it as soon as possible," CoinGecko founder Bobby Ong told CoinDesk in a Telegram message.

“The situation is most likely caused by a malicious ad script by Coinzilla, a crypto ad network – we have disabled it now,” said Ong. “We are monitoring the situation further.”

In a tweet, Etherscan urged users to “not confirm any transactions” that popped up on its website.

CORRECTION (May 14, 14:49 UTC): DeFi Pulse was not one of the websites affected in the attack, as reported in an earlier version of this story.

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Tracy Wang

Tracy was the deputy managing editor at CoinDesk. She owns BTC, ETH, MINA, ENS and some NFTs.


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