Several users claiming to be Mt. Gox creditors have posted on the slush subreddit, stating that unknown hackers have made several unauthorized login attempts to their Mt. Gox accounts over the past 24 hours.
Users claimed that the actors may have used brute force techniques, adding that two-step authentication may have prevented the intruders from accessing their accounts. Others suggested that the incidents may have been caused by some flaw in the system.
A brute force attack is an attack where a hacker attempts to gain access to a user account or system by systematically testing multiple passwords or keys to find the correct password.
“I just got 15 notifications for account logins… Is Mt. Gox under attack?” Reddit user ovkovk wrote. post. Dozens of comments and other user posts have repeated their experiences and suggested hackers are trying to break into their accounts.
In a Reddit thread, some users who received a similar notification email from Mt. Gox said they were able to log into their accounts, while several others claimed they were unable to do so. Mt. Gox is currently in the process of paying out bitcoin to its creditors.
“I’m guessing some attacker has all (or a ton of) gox email records and is trying to brute force them,” Reddit user Joohansson wrote in a comment. “This has happened before. As long as you have 2FA, you’ll ‘hopefully’ be fine,” one commenter said.
“I set up 2FA and when I actually logged in (before enabling 2FA) I got an email from Gox saying I had logged in (before enabling 2FA). So I thought maybe someone knew my password, but 2FA was preventing them from accessing my account.” Another post read:
Meanwhile, the Mt. Gox claims website says it is currently down for maintenance. “Please check back later,” the website says. According to comments on the subreddit, the temporary shutdown appears to have occurred after reports of login attempts.
These reported login attempts follow closed cryptocurrency exchanges. Move Bitcoin Kraken exchange, one of the institutions selected by Mt. Gox administrators to distribute the entire $9 billion in Bitcoin payments.
Two Japanese exchanges, Bitbank and SBI VC Trade, appear to have received and distributed previously allocated funds, while BitGo and Bitstamp have yet to receive their Mt. Gox payments. Goxxed.orgAccording to a website that tracks wallets connected to Mt. Gox, the exchange still holds 47,228.73 BTC ($3.05 billion).
Mt. Gox did not immediately respond to The Block’s request for comment.
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