11 March, 2020 | AtoZ Markets – The Trinity wallet was attacked via a third-party dependency from Moonpay. It resulted in the theft of approximately 8.55 Ti in IOTA tokens from a total of 50 user accounts. On the same day, IOTA paused the coordinator to protect the tokens of Trinity users and prevent further theft.
The coordinator set up as a temporary security mechanism during the maturation phase of the network. By temporarily disabling this component, it was able to ensure further hack. Then it provided users with a new tool to migrate their accounts to security.
IOTA (MIOTA) Successfully Reboots Network
The IOTA Foundation restarts the coordinator on 10 March. The IOTA Foundation has announced that the coordinator - the centralized node that manages all transactions - is back online after a seed migration period. IOTA stated:
With the restart of the coordinator, we are actively monitoring for any suspicious activity.
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We are delighted to announce that the Coordinator has been resumed. Read about the steps taken to protect Trinity users, the role of the Coordinator & the future development of #IOTA. https://t.co/8nhrPRsXs1
— IOTA (@iotatoken) March 10, 2020
According to IOTA, the coordinator on its network is now fully functional, the migration period (from 29 February to 7 March) is now over. However, those who have used their Trinity wallet between 17 December 2019 and 17 February 2020 and who have not yet migrated their seed, must create a new one and transfer their funds from the old seed.
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Future Development of the IOTA Protocol
IOTA also exposed its plans to reduce the possibility of future breaches:
“The IOTA Foundation is in the process of revising its internal processes, with upcoming changes in software security practices. We are also trying to improve our security capabilities and resources. We increase our efforts in education and best practices for any software that manages user accounts on the IOTA network. “
IOTA is currently working on the Coordicide protocol upgrade to make the network decentralized without sacrificing its security. According to IOTA’s blog post, new versions of the Coordicide alphabet may release in the coming months.
According to the IOTA, it did not find the person responsible for the 12 February breach. However, IOTA will continue to work with the FBI, and the British, German, Maltese police to identify and track the hacker.
David Sonstebo, the founder of IOTA, announced that he would fully reimburse all victims of the hack. It took almost a month for IOTA to reactivate the coordinator. That’s why the price of MIOTA has dropped by almost 40% in the last month.
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