Lego’s website was temporarily compromised on Friday after a hacker inserted a banner on its homepage, attempting to dupe fans into buying fake Lego coins as part of a cryptocurrency scam.
The website promised “secret rewards” for any buyers of the coins, and then redirected them to an external crypto website selling “Lego Tokens” with Ethereum. By clicking on the “Acquista” link on the banner, however, users ended up on the phishing site where they could purchase fake ERC-20 tokens.
Some users reported the incident directly to Lego via social media platform, X. One user said: “Hey @LEGO_Group someone popped your site and changed the main page! It directs to a crypto site to an account that is almost definitely not you guys!”
Hey @LEGO_Group someone popped your site and changed the main page! It directs to a crypto site to an account that is almost definitely not you guys! pic.twitter.com/JrG31zcpYX
— ZTBricks (@ztbricks) October 5, 2024
According to a Lego Reddit thread, the attackers were stopped, and the website returned to normal in just over an hour.
In a statement to Engadget, the company said: “On 5 October 2024 (October 4 evening in the US), an unauthorized banner briefly appeared on LEGO.com. It was quickly removed, and the issue has been resolved.
“No user accounts have been compromised, and customers can continue shopping as usual. The cause has been identified and we are implementing measures to prevent this from happening again.”
Will Lego launch its own cryptocurrency?
Lego appears to be more interested in the metaverse and expanding its sets rather than launching its own cryptocurrency. At the 2022 World Economic Forum, the company’s Vice President, Edward Lewin, discussed how augmented reality can change the way children learn today, citing the example of a volcano.
He said that learning about a volcano through a two-dimensional book and seeing it in augmented reality are two vastly different experiences, adding, “it could be a great way for learning for future generations.”
Lewin also talked about building a future for children in the Metaverse, adding: “One in three people using the internet are young adults and children, so I would really focus on building from kids’ perspective, given they are the future users.”
ReadWrite has reached out to Lego for comment.
Featured image: Ideogram
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