Creditors of the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox are reporting numerous failed login attempts on their accounts.
The situation arised as Mt. Gox started to repay its creditors.
Someone is apparently trying to log into creditors’ Mt. Gox accounts amid ongoing bitcoin (BTC) repayments, with several Reddit users reporting as many as 22 failed attempts as of Thursday.
“Just received 15 notifications for account log in. Now can’t get into my account. Is Mt. Gox under attack???,” claimed Reddit user ovkovk in a trending post on the r/mtgoxinsolvency forum. “Thank god at this point you can’t do payee info change. Still getting log in emails. 22 so far.”
More than fifteen other users reported having received similar login notifications, suggesting that an unknown individual was trying to log in to a Mt. Gox – effectively to gain control of that account and likely withdraw any BTC received.
The Mt. Gox claims portal “is temporarily down for maintenance” as of Asian morning hours Thursday, the site shows.
One user u/Joohansson said that such attempts have been made on their Mt. Gox account previously and that accounts enabled with 2FA—a popular security authentication system—are presumably safe.
“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. It has happened before. As long as you have a 2FA you should “hopefully” be fine,” the user said.
In early July, the defunct crypto exchange Mt. Gox began repaying creditors impacted by a 2014 hack. Over $9 billion worth of BTC and $73 million of bitcoin cash (BCH) will be distributed to traders in the coming months.
