Entrepreneur and investor Mark Cuban, whose net worth is over $5 billion, fell victim to a hack on the night of Sept. 15. Cuban lost crypto assets worth $870,000 in the attack that compromised his MetaMask wallet, according to a DL News report.
On-chain sleuth Wazz first pointed out the sudden transactions in the MetaMask wallet labeled ‘Mark Cuban 2’ on EtherScan. The wallet had been inactive for over five months.
Cuban confirmed the hack to DL News and said he had lost 5 Ethereum (ETH) tokens, worth around $8,170 at current prices. However, he also lost USD Coin (USDC), Polygon (MATIC), Lido staked Ethereum (stETH), and tokens from SuperRare and Ethereum Name Service.
Most of the proceeds from the hack were still lying in the hacker’s wallet at the time of writing. Cuban managed to transfer around $2 million USDC from the wallet to Coinbase Custody and save most assets from being stolen.
Malicious MetaMask extension
According to Cuban, he is “pretty sure” he downloaded a malicious version of MetaMask, which led to the hack. He told DL News:
“I went on MetaMask for the first time in months. They must have been watching.”
Malicious actors often create fake extensions of MetaMask to hoodwink users into divulging private keys or seed phrases. Once the bad actors gain access, they can easily drain assets.
Cuban said his MetaMask application “crashed a couple times,” after which he locked his non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on OpenSea and moved all his MATIC from the account.
This is not the first time Cuban has suffered crypto losses. When Iron Finance’s TITAN stablecoin collapsed in a supposed rug pull in 2021, Cuban lost an unspecified amount of assets.
Furthermore, Cuban is the latest target in a string of high-profile crypto hacks and scams. Crypto exchange CoinEx reportedly lost $27 million in a hack on Sept. 12.
Last week, Ethereum co-founder Vitalike Buterin’s X account was hacked and used to promote a fishing link. The scammers stole around $700,000 worth of NFTs and crypto from the victims.
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