"Ugh we'll that was fun way to wake up" tweeted Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, last Sunday. What happened?
The digital artist's Twitter account was hacked on May 22 by scammers, who posted two tweets under his name with links to a fake raffle that allegedly offered a chance to win digital artworks that Beeple had created with Louis Vuitton. The hackers had obviously done their homework, as Beeple's actual collaboration with the French luxury label in 2019 lent credence to the whole thing.
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The phishing links led to fake websites that stole valuable NFTs and cryptocurrencies from Beeple followers. Via the first link, the criminals stole Ethereum (units of the second largest crypto system after Bitcoin) worth around $73,000, while the second link stole a total of $365,000 in NFTs and cryptocurrencies.
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The hackers controlled Beeple's Twitter for several hours before he was able to recover his account. Once he got his account back, Beeple warned his fans not to fall for such promises that sound "too good to be true".
![Beeple, ‘Everydays: The First 5000 Days’, 2021, digital [detail]. Photo © Christie’s](https://images.prismic.io/barnebys/560126fa-fbd6-4c97-bb3c-8de6186f8924_Beeple-2.jpg?auto=compress,format)