Beginning over two week ago , reports have dribble in on Reddit community “ r / btc”—the de facto hub for supporters of bitcoin rival bitcoin Johnny Cash ( BCH)—of account being compromised by a unexampled and worrying approach vector . What may have read to skeptics as infighting between two contentious factions was confirmed today as a actual and new hack that allowed malicious political party to access their fair game ’ Reddit accounts . And it seems the assailant overwork the vulnerability to steal M of clam in BCH .
Thefirstof this rash of flak compromised the account of an r / btc moderator on December 20th . Administrative exclusive right from the hacked account were used to , among other things , reconfigure the r / btc subreddit so it pointed to its rival , gas constant / bitcoin . As over half a dozen more reports of compromised accounts toss off up on r / btc over the next two weeks , details emerged as to how the plug were accomplished .
As user Jessquit summarized on December 31st :
[ M]y accounting was just hack a few minute ago and the password changed [ … ] The assaulter was able to change my watchword by charge a watchword convalescence email then clicking the link in the email to reset the password , even though I have activate [ two - factor authentication ] on my Reddit account , and my electronic mail was not compromise . This is a very severe turn of event .
The feat allowed hackers to bespeak a parole reset for a mark report and then click the generate link without launch the e-mail it had been send in . How was this possible ? Theories circulated , buoyed by post onHacker NoonandThe Next WWW . It was the r / bitcoin users out to cause trouble ; Or was it a Reddit admin pass away rogue ?
But this attack had incentive beyond ideology . What made the users of r / btc such a rich target was the deployment of a bot explanation call off Tippr , which was used , among other affair , to reward a especially fishy or insightful gossip . By tagging someone and designating an amount , Tippr withdraw some BCH from your hotwallet and allocate it to the recipient . give that Tippr is active on both Reddit and Twitter ( where itprovides its contribution servicefor such heavyweights as the Tor Project ) , there was well-to-do money to be had .
At least Rob Danielson , the Divine of Tippr , seems to consider the most likely perpetrator is “ someone [ who ] see they had an opportunity to make a quick buck . ” He differentiate Gizmodo over Twitter DM that the attackers made off with “ somewhere between $ 2k-$4k Charles Frederick Worth of BCH ” by using the hacked accounts to bespeak withdrawals from Tippr through Reddit private message .
This is n’t the first prison term a tipping bot on Reddit has resulted in lose funds . Eight month ago , the dogecoin community wasstunnedby an unapologetic post from the creator of dogetipbot where they detailed having steal the total contribution pot to fund their flunk business . The Tippr incident accept some passing law of similarity — and spawn the usual confederacy theories — though Danielson take straightaway action mechanism to prevent further breaches . “ After finding out about it , I disabled Tippr ’s Reddit functionality , ” he compose .
Reddit ’s reaction came this morning from engineer u / gooeyblob , confirm the hemipteron but thankfully no one ’s tough mistrust . The light link was identified as Mailgun — a third - party military service Reddit uses to institutionalise automated e-mail . In total , Reddit forecast the number of compromise report was “ less than twenty ” :
A malicious actor targeted Mailgun and gained access code to Reddit ’s password reset emails . The nature of the exploit meant that an unauthorized person was able to reach the contents of the reset email . This individual did not have admittance to either Reddit ’s systems or to a redditor ’s email account . As an prompt precautional measure , we moved reset emails to an in - house mail waiter .
Mailgun’sown postconfirms the blast vector , and claims “ client defrayment selective information was not compromised . ” According to Mailgun “ we believe less than 1 % of our customer base was potentially affected . ”
Although Reddit and Mailgun claim this specific egress has been resolved , we suggest turn two - factor certification on forReddit , email , and anything else sensitive you use online .
Who is responsible and where those slip BCH ended up ? For now , it remain a mystery .
Update 1/5/18 2:08pm ET : Tippr has beenreactivatedon Reddit .
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