Overnight we have received notices of some unusual requests to our infrastructure. Over a short period of time many password reset emails had been requested from various residential proxies around the world. Our rate limiting protects against spamming attacks but requests got through to request password reset emails. Many of the requests are likely for emails that had been included in some data breach or have been publicly exposed by their owner. Password request emails also have been requested for lightning addresses which falsely exposed the user's email address. This had been a feature deployed to help users keep easy access to their accounts. But as many users post their lightning address on profiles like nostr this should not be exposed and a fix has been deployed immediately. Generally there should be no way to display a user's email address. We have failed here. About 5500 password reset emails had been requested by the attacker. **We have not seen any abnormal related login activity and accounts are safe. People who got a password reset email can ignore the email.** As we have seen a general increase in attacks on user accounts trying to brute force logins with some emails from some data leaks we have fully disabled password logins and require all users to login with the one time token. This adds an another layer of security. Additionally we also offer the option to login with Google. If you have questions or feedback, please let us know: support.getalby.com

Replies (77)

Susana Chicoria 's avatar
Susana Chicoria 2 months ago
Confirmed. I have a request to reset my password and I’m not subscribed anymore after having my keys surprisingly changed and lost access to one of my primal accounts.
We've seen many attacks where it seemed attackers have used emails + passwords from different breaches. If you want get a picture of which breaches your email was included in: However, we also recognize that Alby emails could have been exposed through the reset password system as mentioned already in this announcement and we have made the necessary changes to ensure affected users are not at risk of losing their funds.
Nostr keys are saved locally and encrypted in the Alby Extension and are not affected in any way. Please contact Alby support and we can see if there's any way you are able to recover your lost primal account.
They don't break any server, by using your public alby address in nostr, they just requested a password reset. This is not scam email, it's real email from Alby. The hack consists of that they can get your email from your Alby address, but to do so they have to trigger password reset. Everything is pretty safe, don't worry. Just make sure use strong passwords and have in mind for any incoming emails with email address connected to Alby account
HadaikumLN's avatar
HadaikumLN 2 months ago
Thanks to the email I’ve realized that custom self hosted @ addresses are now very expansive 😢
that's correct. and we're very sorry this happened. we couldn't filter all requests and reset emails have been requested. that email can be ignored and for additional security we now also enforce login with an one time token.
It's definitely unpleasant that it happened. But one must be careful on the internet. I personally, using tools to check for data leaks, have seen emails leaked from other much bigger companies and software. That's why personal culture regarding cybersecurity is an important thing. I'm also 99% sure that a large part of these emails have already been leaked somewhere else. That's why it's good to use email masking services.
hasky's avatar
hasky 2 months ago
My friend send transfer 1000$ to her Alby hub and she expect received soon . Been 2 days .
yes, many requests we see originate from emails that also don't have accounts with Alby. There are many brute force attacks out there in the wild internet sadly. Using alias email addresses like the ones proton offers is encouraged.
hasky's avatar
hasky 2 months ago
Good you informed this
hasky's avatar
hasky 2 months ago
I think she will received it’s just this is the first time so she will wait til 3 days . You guys mentioned this on your website . It will take 2-3 working days if I am not mistaken . Right ?
hasky's avatar
hasky 2 months ago
She has alby cloud pro hub , when she wants to top up her bitcoin , she need to buy bitcoin and through the third payment system like Mt. pelerin .. is it not right ? This is not transfer from lightning to lightning payment ..? Don’t you not know this ?
Hey @Alby - please allow passkey login. My account shouldn’t be constrained solely by email. Email is not a suitable 2FA method. Username + password + TOTP or email token + TOTP are good, but Passkey is better because it requires a device you possess already and doesn’t rely on email that’s phishable. I’ve seen other sites go further and require TOTP after a Passkey too, fwiw. Point being, give uses the option for real 2FA decoupled from email.
Roosterboi's avatar
Roosterboi 2 months ago
Confirmed, I was also affected by this. Thought it was odd. But don’t use Alby for much so just shrugged it off, thanks for the info!
Thank you for the update! I changed my email and disabled password logins as well when I got the password reset request email! Would prefer using TOTP with an Authenticator instead of email though but I couldn’t find that in the settings.
Yep - good to see it's fixed. Thanks @Alby for quick turnaround I want to point out I saw this posted on NOSTR yesterday which was pretty instant and the fact a thread of people calling out to Alby for information worked so well... And alby gets back to us with nostr... Its just so great to see!
I just checked HIBP for the email I used with Alby and it shows up in 0 data breaches, so my email was definitely leaked via the password reset mechanism on your site. I’m not stressing about that too much, but you should be careful about deflecting too much blame.
For info, the email resets received on our side were set up specifically for internal testing and never shared anywhere Good luck with the investigation and thanks for the transparency! Hope we can all learn something.
this password reset feels like the tip of an iceberg. leaking emails on reset? credential stuffing? this is basic stuff in auth, which brings my to my next point: this screams a homerolled auth system by someone with little experience or a lapse in judgment. id bet the former. wonder what else you’d fine if you looked around. good time to double check those cookie settings and maybe google “owasp top 10” View quoted note →
If the service wasn't already shitty enough. Charging way too much money and the service is crap. Can't even talk to a person without paying. Now they leaked my personal data. Great. Thanks for nothing
Default avatar
₿rad 2 months ago
I actually noticed a request from my email to reset my password that happened yesterday and I just happened to try and reset it today and noticed it while i was searching my inbox.
If you really want you can get in touch with Alby anytime using the chat widget on support.getalby.com and I bet you'll receive a reply within 12 hours from a human, not a bot.
Good to know that she used Mt.Pelerin. If she did KYC, she should receive it on the same day depending on the payment method she used. If she didn't do KYC, she needs to wait 7 days. That's Mt.Pelerin's policy to ensure they are not scammed.
We noticed that a lot of users used their lightning address instead of email address to log into their Alby Account. To make it easy for them we recognized their lightning address instead of rejecting it and sent them the one-time login code via email. For better guidance we told them the email address, which was a mistake .
Susana Chicoria 's avatar
Susana Chicoria 2 months ago
I have already canceled my subscription a few weeks ago … Any advice on how to manage this. image
Susana Chicoria 's avatar
Susana Chicoria 2 months ago
I came home and I was surprisingly log out, when I tried and connect my keys were not recognised so I lost access to it , including my primal account. I uninstall the extension but I’m still getting emails and paying ?!
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