Bitfinex Reports Temporary Outage as DDoS Attack Takes Bitcoin Exchange Down

by Aziz Abdel-Qader
  • The hackers mainly use cyberattacks to manipulate cryptocurrency prices.
Bitfinex Reports Temporary Outage as DDoS Attack Takes Bitcoin Exchange Down
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Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange Bitfinex today said that its platform was under distributed denial-of-service attacks, or DDoS, that attempted to paralyze its system with a flood of information.

The second largest US dollar-based bitcoin exchange saw a spike in traffic this Monday morning and the number of connections attempting to reach the website was enough to temporarily disrupt its activity.

At 7:39 a.m. ET, on Twitter, Bitfinex stated that its website was under a massive DDoS Attack , which managed to take it down.

"The cause is a DDoS attack. A person or group is intentionally trying to cause the platform to not operate normally. A DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service attack, attempts to paralyze a system with a flood of information," the exchange tweeted.

That problem was resolved within an hour, and the exchange said that despite the ongoing attack, the users are now able to use the platform normally.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are fairly common against cryptocurrency exchanges, especially the popular ones. However, DDoS attacks are a bit less scary than hacks that cause clients to lose funds.

The hackers use cyberattacks mainly to manipulate the cryptocurrency prices. Since the price of the digital currencies is set by several exchanges around the world, shutting off an exchange temporarily could allow attackers to find arbitrage opportunities, i.e. to take advantage of price differences.

Hong Kong-based Bitcoin exchange Bitfinex today said that its platform was under distributed denial-of-service attacks, or DDoS, that attempted to paralyze its system with a flood of information.

The second largest US dollar-based bitcoin exchange saw a spike in traffic this Monday morning and the number of connections attempting to reach the website was enough to temporarily disrupt its activity.

At 7:39 a.m. ET, on Twitter, Bitfinex stated that its website was under a massive DDoS Attack , which managed to take it down.

"The cause is a DDoS attack. A person or group is intentionally trying to cause the platform to not operate normally. A DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service attack, attempts to paralyze a system with a flood of information," the exchange tweeted.

That problem was resolved within an hour, and the exchange said that despite the ongoing attack, the users are now able to use the platform normally.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks are fairly common against cryptocurrency exchanges, especially the popular ones. However, DDoS attacks are a bit less scary than hacks that cause clients to lose funds.

The hackers use cyberattacks mainly to manipulate the cryptocurrency prices. Since the price of the digital currencies is set by several exchanges around the world, shutting off an exchange temporarily could allow attackers to find arbitrage opportunities, i.e. to take advantage of price differences.

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