• MultiChoice has provided a short and uninformative response after its X profiles advertised NFT scams.
• The group says it is investigating the incident and will “communicate any updates in due time”.
• The firm told Hypertext “we have all hands on deck” as regards this incident.

Last week we covered a story in which MultiChoice appeared to be advertising an NFT minting event that was actually directing folks to scam website.

The adverts purported to be for a legitimate NFT project dubbed BoldApe, but the URLs in those adverts directed us to a website that was clearly trying to phish login details for crypto wallets.

The adverts appeared on both MultiChoice and DStv’s official X accounts (formerly Twitter).

While we alerted MultiChoice to the incident the brand went radio silent on Thursday. This morning, however, we were made aware that yet another scam ad had appeared on DStv’s account. Like last week’s adverts, these posts don’t appear on the public-facing X profiles as this content is managed off of X through its advertising platform.

Desperate for answers we barraged MultiChoice with emails and they have eventually responded, albeit poorly.

“MultiChoice is aware that an advert from an unknown source was posted to some of its social media pages advertising an alleged NFT scam. Our teams are working diligently to investigate this incident and want to assure our customers that we always strive for the highest value of security and will communicate any updates in due time,” the firm said in a statement.

In a follow-up email we were told by MultiChoice that, “We have all hands on deck”.

This is, quite frankly, a poor response. There is no information on what has happened, what has been compromised, or even if customers should be worried.

Reading between the lines, however, it appears as if these ads weren’t placed by MultiChoice which is good to know. This indicates compromise, but without more information we’re speculating.

While we understand that investigations take time, MultiChoice has dragged its feet in notifying customers that something is wrong. There is not even so much as a post on X warning followers not to click links in emails or to be distrustful of NFT projects that appear in its advertising.

We’d hoped that the Information Regulator would be on hand to assist. Multiple calls to the body to determine whether MultiChoice had reported a breach to the Information Regulator went unanswered or were answered only to be terminated immediately.

As we advised last week, avoid clicking links on MultiChoice advertising (including its affiliated brands) until the firm is willing to share more information and assure customers they are safe.