Blockchain platform Polygon has reported that its community Discord channel has been compromised in a recent security breach. Mudit Gupta, Polygon's Chief Information Security Officer, confirmed the incident and advised users to avoid clicking on any links shared in the Discord channel until the situation is fully resolved.
Polygon Users Targeted
The breach has sparked concerns over the platform's security measures, despite Gupta's reassurance that all privileged accounts had two-factor authentication (2FA) enabled. Discord, widely used by cryptocurrency communities for communication, has become a frequent target for cybercriminals due to the valuable information and assets managed on these channels.
The impact of the breach is already being felt within the community. A Polygon user, shadabk2005, took to the X platform to warn others about the ongoing situation. "There are scam links being posted in the announcements channel," the user noted, adding that he was given a timeout after attempting to raise awareness of the issue.
The severity of the attack was underscored when another user, ValidatorK, reported a loss of $150,000 worth of Ether from his pool. The funds were lost after interacting with what appeared to be an official announcement on Polygon's Discord channel.
Discord Hacks on the Rise
The attack on Polygon's Discord channel is the latest in a series of high-profile breaches affecting the cryptocurrency community. On March 25, 2023, blockchain security firm CertiK highlighted a phishing scam on the Arbitrum Discord server. The scam, believed to have been executed through a hacked developer account, involved a fake announcement containing a malicious link. Similarly, on May 5, the Gnus.AI artificial intelligence network suffered a Discord-related exploit that resulted in a loss of approximately $1.27 million.
The timing of this breach is particularly concerning for Polygon, which is currently undergoing a major network upgrade. The platform plans to replace its native Polygon token with POL tokens as part of an upgrade scheduled for September 4. This upgrade aims to expand the utility of Polygon's native token and enhance its growing network of aggregated blockchains, known as AggLayer.
