MangaDex hacked: Service to remain offline for 2+ weeks until v5 releases (potential alternatives inside)

[Chewy_fox]

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on March 22, 2021) follows:

On March 17, MangaDex had reported that it was breached or hacked by a malicious actor who managed to gain access to an admin account.

Following that, the attacker also sent out emails to a few users with the message “MangaDex has a DB leak. I suggest you tell their staff about it,” as per the official notice on the website.

MangaDex website notice

Since then, all MangaDex has been down for maintenance to avoid any further disruption and security issues for the site and its users as we reported yesterday.

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Fortunately, rather than trying to hush up the details, MangaDex has been fairly transparent about the breach and has been sharing details via Twitter.

It is yet to be confirmed that a database breach happened, however, the team suggests taking precautions immediately to secure your online identity. Therefore, you may want to change your passwords on other sites too in case you’ve been using the same password for all sites.

(Source)

That being said, MangaDex has now confirmed that it will remain offline until the new site’s — MangaDex v5 — codebase is fully rewritten which could take 2+ weeks.

This decision was made after taking into consideration several other options including bringing back the site in its current state which could be vulnerable to further attacks according to MangaDex.

The new site would go live with only the basic functions. This means you’ll only be able to read, upload, and follow when MangaDex v5 is released. Similar to the OG site.

(Source)

If you’re worried about your existing bookmarks and stuff, don’t be. The team has confirmed that they will be bringing back MangaDex v3, albeit with a limited set of features to let users export bookmarks, etc.

Apart from that, MangaDex has also claimed that none of your follows will be erased in the new site.

The team may consider forming a bug bounty program for v5. This should help MangaDex to fix or patch all exploits in the code to prevent attackers from breaching the site in the future.

(Source)

Now, all that’s left to do is wait for the new site to go live and hope that there are no further breaches. But in case you wish to explore alternatives to MangaDex, well, there are a few that are worth considering.

Last year, we came up with a list of some great alternatives to Manga Rock which included the likes of Tachiyomi, Mangazone, and Mangabird. These do remain excellent alternatives to MangaDex as well.

But those aren’t the only alternatives. Manganelo and Mangakakalot are two other sites that have been recommended by manga fans recently.

Having said that, feel free to share your views on the MangaDex situation and whether or not you’ll be using the site again even after it was hacked.

Update 1 (April 08)

MangaDex has released an update regarding the situation and its efforts towards v5 of the site. As per the latest information, the team has made “significant progress,” however, is still looking for help from volunteers.

The team is currently using Vuetify to “hasten MVP development” but has confirmed that the v5 design would use a CSS framework instead of a UI library like Vuetify. Furthermore, it’s been confirmed that the frontend will become open-source. 

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