Multiple Mt. Gox creditors claim brute-force login attempts on accounts

Multiple users who claim to be Mt. Gox creditors have posted on an insolvency subreddit, stating that they have noticed several unauthorized login attempts on their Mt. Gox accounts by unknown hackers in the last 24 hours.

Users claimed that the actors may be using brute-force techniques and added that their two-factor authentication likely thwarted the intruders from accessing their accounts. Others suggested the incidents might be due to some glitch in the system.

A brute force attack involves hackers attempting to access user accounts or systems by systematically testing numerous passwords or keys until they discover the correct one. 

“Just received 15 notifications for account log in … Is Mt. Gox under attack?” Redditor ovkovk wrote in a post . Dozens of comments and other user posts reiterated that they have experienced the same, speculating that hackers were trying to get into their accounts.

While some users on the Reddit thread who received similar notification emails from Mt. Gox said they could log in to their accounts, several others claimed that they could not. Mt. Gox is currently in the process of handing out bitcoin to its creditors.

“I would guess some attacker has a record of all (or a whole lot of) gox emails and trying to brute force their way in,” Reddit user Joohansson wrote in a comment. “It has happened before. As long as you have a 2FA you should ‘hopefully’ be fine,” a commentator said .

“I have 2FA setup, and when I actually logged in (before I put the 2FA) I noticed that I receive the email from Gox stating that I logged in (even before I used the 2FA) which leads me to think someone might have my password, but the 2FA prevented them to access the account,” another post read.

Meanwhile, the Mt. Gox claims website currently says it is down for maintenance. “Please check back shortly,” the website said . According to comments on the subreddit, the temporary closure appears to have taken place after reports of login attempts. 

Such reported login attempts follow the defunct cryptocurrency exchange moving its bitcoin to Kraken exchange, one of the entities selected by the Mt. Gox trustee to distribute the overall $9 billion bitcoin payout.

Two Japanese exchanges, Bitbank and SBI VC Trade, previously received and seemingly distributed their allocated funds, while BitGo and Bitstamp have yet to receive their Mt. Gox payments. Goxxed.org , the website that tracks wallets linked to Mt. Gox, says the exchange still holds 47228.73 BTC ($3.05 billion).

Mt. Gox did not immediately respond to The Block’s request for comment.