In a recent alarming incident, Monero’s community crowdfunding wallet fell victim to a devastating attack, leading to the complete depletion of its balance, which amounted to 2,675.73 Monero (XMR), equivalent to nearly $460,000.
Although the attack transpired on September 1st, the Monero community only became aware of it when Monero developer Luigi disclosed the incident on GitHub on November 2nd.
Regrettably, the source of this security breach remains unidentified, casting a shadow of uncertainty over Monero’s community.
Luigi revealed the grim details, stating, “The CCS Wallet was drained of 2,675.73 XMR (the entire balance) on September 1, 2023, just before midnight.
The hot wallet, used for payments to contributors, is untouched; its balance is ~244 XMR. We have thus far not been able to ascertain the source of the breach.”
Monero’s Community Crowdfunding System (CCS) plays a pivotal role in financing development proposals from its members, and this ruthless attack has far-reaching consequences.
One Monero developer, Ricardo “Fluffypony” Spagni, voiced his outrage, emphasizing,
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“This attack is unconscionable, as they’ve taken funds that a contributor might be relying on to pay their rent or buy food.”
The intriguing aspect of this incident is that Luigi and Spagni were the only individuals with access to the wallet’s seed phrase. Luigi’s post disclosed that the CCS wallet was established on an Ubuntu system back in 2020, alongside a Monero node.
Payments to community members were made using a hot wallet situated on a Windows 10 Pro desktop since 2017.
The hot wallet was replenished as needed from the CCS wallet. However, on September 1st, a series of nine transactions drained the CCS wallet completely, leaving Monero’s core team grappling with the aftermath.
There is a suspicion that this attack may be connected to a series of ongoing attacks since April, which have exploited various compromised keys, including Bitcoin wallet.dats, seeds generated by diverse hardware and software, Ethereum pre-sale wallets, and now Monero XMR.
Some developers speculate that the breach may have originated from the wallet keys being exposed online via the Ubuntu server.
In light of these developments, the Monero community faces a challenging road ahead, with many unanswered questions surrounding the security of their funds and the potential vulnerabilities that led to this catastrophic incident.
The call has been made for the General Fund to assume responsibility for addressing the current liabilities arising from this disheartening breach.
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