Google Ads-delivered malware drains NFT influencer’s entire crypto wallet

[_act_]

A pseudo-anonymous influencer known on Twitter as “NFT God” said his crypto wallet and online accounts have been attack after downloading a software found on google ads. NFT and crypto worth life-changing of his digital asset were stolen.

https://cryptonews.net/news/security/19321939/

Last night my entire digital livelihood was violated.
Every account connected to me both personally and professionally was hacked and used to hurt others.
Less importantly, I lost a life changing amount of my net worth

— NFT God (@NFT_GOD) January 15, 2023

Do not learn your own lesson from yourself, avoid ads.

[Upgrade00]

That's a rookie mistake that should not be made by someone who is holding life changing amount in crypto. But if the last few weeks has been anything to go by, anyone can make mistakes and fall for cheap scam attempts.

He should have shared more details about that software he downloaded and how he thinks the rip off happened.

Do not learn your own lesson from yourself, avoid ads.

Besides avoiding ads, one should not hold assets on a device they use to browse the internet often.
If he had his crypto in a hardware wallet or an airgapped device, the software would have nothing to steal on his regular device.

[Nwada001]

One thing about google, they always after making profit. Anyone who can pay for ads not minding what the ad's is or it's security, users privacy and so on are not being check, most of this virus are sometimes not detected by antivirus which makes it difficult for those who relay fully on anti virus.

Issues like this for someone exposed to crypto, he should have known or always use different PC different from where his fortune is store.

For security reasons I always use only trusted apps and extension even when using them, I first of all run a background check to know it's rating.

[Ryker1]

Google will only ban malicious ads if someone reported it, this is not new to Google --they did not care about their user, they care about the money they will get from that ads. they don't have any filter to determine malicious malware on ads.
So if this was on the OBS app, it seems everywhere in Google ads that something you download. People should learn to go to the ^{[official website]} for downloading the apps not somewhere else on Google.
That was a rookie move and I think that NTF influencer seems pretty new in the crypto world, that such a mistake will make awareness among others new in crypto.

[Lucius]

A classic amateur move, because how else to describe that nowadays someone is not aware that Google ads should be avoided at all costs, and that it is best to prevent them from being seen at all by installing uBlock Origin, which will block all such ads. When I read a story like this, I only get more disappointed that people are so unaware of basic internet security, and present themselves as some kind of crypto experts.

I read the article and came across another incredible piece of information, the victim of this hack had a hardware wallet, but that only shows that even such a device can't protect you if you don't use it correctly.

Alex believes the “critical mistake” that allowed the wallet hack was setting up his hardware wallet as a hot wallet by entering its seed phrase “in a way that no longer kept it cold,” or offline which allowed hackers to gain control of his crypto and NFTs.

[BitMaxz]

Any Google ads shown on their search result or any app can't be trusted, their ads are easy to manipulate, and actually, you can run any ads you want for free with a $100 AdWords coupon. You can set it to only show in the search results or to all google partner blogs/apps/youtube. Google doesn't have time to check and verify new accounts/businesses/websites they only wait for someone to report it before they take any action.

That is why I disable Google ads on chrome and use an ad blocker like uBlock origin to avoid any ads or you can just ignore them and never try to click them.
And make sure also use proper protection on your PC like using Kaspersky this one I tested this for many years to protect my PC from any harmful viruses and malware.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Google are malicious. Stop using them.

Lost track of how many times I've repeated this:

Stop using Google to find the website of exchanges, services, or wallets.

Stop following random links without checking the URL.

Start using uBlock Origin.

Never type your seed in anywhere.

How many times does this need repeated?

First of all, Google hosts scams. So many scams. On their search engine, on their app store, on their ad platforms, everywhere. As long as the scammers pay them, Google do not give a single fuck about hosting scams and regular people losing their money. Google is a truly terrible choice for literally anything. Stop using them.

You'll also notice that the scam links are promoted as ads. Use uBlock Origin. It is the only ad blocker you will ever need, and will filter out all these scam ads. (Note: uBlock is a different piece of software to uBlock Origin, and one you should avoid. It's uBlock Origin that you want.)

And stop clicking on random links and stop typing in your seed phrase. This is basic crypto security 101.

[Outhue]

I was about to make a similar topic on the forum, you are just faster than me, Google doesn't care who wants to use the company name as source of advert, they already have big reputation and users need to take responsibility for every links they visit through google, I have seen this search engine promoting scams few times in the past, Ponzi scheme using google for promotion and you can see 20% interest as on Google search engine. This sucks so much but they just don't care.

Users are the one to be careful with google, just because they are big does not mean they are scam free.

[Z-tight]

Google ads might be giving you something different from what you are looking for, it would look real but can have malware hidden inside, and once downloaded, anything on that device can be compromised. I always use the official website of whatever i want to download, if you download that way you would not download malware, not doing so was why this victim made this mistake:

NFT God, known also as “Alex” said he used Google's search engine to download OBS, an open-source video streaming software, instead of clicking on the official website, he clicked the sponsored advertisement for what he thought was the same thing.

I don't know of this video streaming app, but it seems scammers have clones of it on Google ads, since the victim didn't give out too much information, if you use this streaming app, make sure to always download it and everything else you use from its official website.

[drwhobox]

Someone who called himself 'GOD' made a mistake like a newb! Even a normal internet guy would be careful about downloading something from an AD in his main device where he has important assets.

Do not learn your own lesson from yourself, avoid ads.

Can't agree anymore with you. It was not a lesson for avoiding AD's it was a lesson about not being a fool while acting genius.
That guy should've known what he was downloading and where he was downloading it from. 

By the way, your topic title somehow means that google Ads delivered the malware, but in that case, he downloaded the malware himself. There is nothing to do with google.