Porsche halted the minting of a new NFT collection after dismal turnout and backlash from the crypto community, allowing threat actors to fill the void by creating phishing sites that steal digital assets from of cryptocurrency wallets.

NFTs (non-fungible tokens) are digital assets stored on a blockchain, representing proof of authenticity and ownership of an item, such as an image of artwork, music, and anything else that can take the form of digital media.

The German automaker launched its first NFT mint on Monday, January 23, 2023, offering a digital replica of the iconic 911 car for 0.911 ETH, worth around $1,500.

However, the delays in rolling out the collection caused frustration in the community, as only around 20% of the promised 7,500 NFTs had been minted after 24 hours and three waves of minting.

To make matters worse, a thriving NFT resale market was set up at OpenSea where it was cheaper to buy the Porsche collectables than to get the original, which immediately devalued the assets and further infuriated investors and traders.

Eventually, on January 24, Porsche announced that it would halt the minting process and reduce supply until it figured out how to debut NFT. The actual minting process did not stop until January 25 at 6:00 UTC-5, giving the scammers plenty of chances to take advantage of the confusing situation.

As the mint cuts short, the crooks bloom

As Porsche NFTs have increased in value in the coming days, the scale of fraudulent activity around the Mint has also increased, with threat actors launching phishing sites to impersonate an ongoing Porsche Mint. .

However, when users connected their crypto wallets to phishing sites, they attempted to drain assets and funds from the wallets.

This forced Porsche to warn on January 27 against fake accounts promoting the continuation of the NFT minting process to steal people’s details and assets.

Today, more than a week after Porsche failed to launch the NFT, several scammers continue to deceive people seeking personalized digital 911 NFTs.

BleepingComputer had found a notable case of a now-suspended Twitter account with nearly 11,000 followers posing as Porsche’s dedicated NFT account.

Although this account is linked to the genuine Porsche Discord channel, it is also linked to a malicious site (“porsche-nfts.com”) which is visually a clone of the genuine Porsche NFT portal at “nft.porsche.com”.

While the real site has a notice of the minting being shut down, the fake claims the process is still ongoing, prompting users to link their wallets.

Also, the fake Twitter account had a pinned tweet saying that the remaining Porsche NFTs are now available to claim for free while promising to renew the stock for the remaining community.

The fake account had disabled user comments under all posts and even re-tweeted posts from the real Porsche account, making it easy to trick people into getting a digital 911 NFT while missing signs of fraud.

The fraudulent account was closed today, and a previous one used by the same scammer also appears to have been suspended.

However, other accounts are likely profiting from the Porsche Web3 snafu, so aspiring investors are advised to be extremely vigilant.