Bitfinex was hit by a DDoS – or distributed denial of service – attack today. The exchange declared the strike in the early hours of Tuesday morning and said that it had been “tracking the situation.” Bitcoin prices dropped to a low of $7,373 following the news.
Bitfinex said that the DDoS attack led to trading being paused whilst it conducted “unplanned maintenance.” The exchange has been hacked previously, losing in the region of 120,000 Bitcoin in August 2016.
Of course Bitfinex is not alone in suffering at the hands of hackers. Coincheck, Bitstamp, Bitgrail and the infamous Mt Gox hack are notable examples. To date it is thought that around one million Bitcoin have been stolen as a result of hacks on crypto exchanges.
DDoS attacks involve hackers taking over a large number of computers and flooding websites and computer systems with traffic, causing temporary loss of service. Such attacks might be motivated by efforts to provide advantages to a website’s competitors, to force a website to pay a ransom to hackers, or even as a strategy to buy up cheaper Bitcoin.
According to Imperva Incapsula, nearly three out of four crypto exchanges have been targeted by DDoS attacks in the third quarter of 2017 alone.
