Building bridges in the Metaverse, elaborate Apes scam and more

South Korea’s Gyeongbuk Province has announced plans to use Web3 technology to expand its economic relations with Vietnam.

In a Dec. 19 announcement, the province’s governor Lee Cheol-woo said the metaverse project would focus on “growing economic, cultural, commercial, and people-centered contacts with Vietnam.”

According to the governor, the project will also see the region become home to a “metaverse innovation special zone,” which would come with special regulations and residential conditions within the zone.

Back in June, the province announced it would invest $13.8 million to establish itself as a hub for metaverse innovation in the hope of growing the local economy.

South Korea has been very active in Metaverse development since the beginning of 2022 and it aims to become the fifth most metaverse-ready country in the world. It has allocated $186.7 million to create an all-encompassing metaverse platform known as Expanded Virtual World.

14 Bored Apes stolen in phishing scam

A Cybersecurity analyst using the name Serpent has detailed in a lengthy Dec. 17 post how a scammer allegedly stole 14 Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) through a month-long social engineering scam.

The analyst alleged the scam began when the victim was asked to license the IP rights for the Apes, with the scammer claiming to be “a casting director working for ‘Forte Pictures’,” on an NFT related film called “The Return of Time.” He said the alias used by the alleged scammer was fake, although Forte Pictures is a real company (and not involved).

Using a fake website, fake pitches, legal contracts and other elaborate subterfuge including Twitter spaces to build credibility, they offered a bid for the NFTs and directed the victim to a fake NFT platform where they were asked to “sign the contract” which is where the wallet drain took place.

“The scam website displayed a gas-less Seaport signature, which they claimed he needed to sign for the license. However, the signature actually created a private bundle listing of all of the victim’s BAYCs to the scammer for 0.00000001 ETH,” Serpent said.

“The scammer’s wallet, funded by Secret Network, ran the match orders function to complete the private sale. The scammer then accepted the highest WETH offers on all of the NFTs, then converted the 852.86 WETH to 1.07m DAI,” the analyst added.

10/ A few notes to take:
– Understand what you’re signing, don’t blindly sign random signatures/transactions
– Don’t sign Seaport…