Bitfinex Reports Temporary Outage as DDoS Attack Takes Bitcoin Exchange Down

Hong Kong-based Bitcoin Bitcoin While some may still be wondering what is Bitcoin, who created Bitcoin, or how does Bitcoin work, one thing is certain: Bitcoin has changed the world.No one can remain indifferent to this revolutionary, decentralized, digital asset nor to its blockchain technology.In fact, we’ve gone a long way ever since a Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz made BTC’s first official commercial transaction with a real company by trading 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 pizzas at his local Papa John’s.One could now argue that While some may still be wondering what is Bitcoin, who created Bitcoin, or how does Bitcoin work, one thing is certain: Bitcoin has changed the world.No one can remain indifferent to this revolutionary, decentralized, digital asset nor to its blockchain technology.In fact, we’ve gone a long way ever since a Florida resident Laszlo Hanyecz made BTC’s first official commercial transaction with a real company by trading 10,000 Bitcoins for 2 pizzas at his local Papa John’s.One could now argue that Read this Term 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 DDoS Attack A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is defined as an attempt by malicious actor to overwhelm a targeted server, website, or network with a flood of internet traffic. Most often this takes the shape of a machine or network becoming unavailable to users for a period of time through the systematic disruption services of a host connected to the Internet.These attacks are most effective when multiple compromised computer systems and other internet-connected devices are exploited as sources A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is defined as an attempt by malicious actor to overwhelm a targeted server, website, or network with a flood of internet traffic. Most often this takes the shape of a machine or network becoming unavailable to users for a period of time through the systematic disruption services of a host connected to the Internet.These attacks are most effective when multiple compromised computer systems and other internet-connected devices are exploited as sources Read this Term, which managed to take it down.

Platform is currently under heavy load and we are working to bring it back online.

— Bitfinex (@bitfinex) ٤ ديسمبر، ٢٠١٧

"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.

The platform is returning to normal operations. We will keep monitoring the situation closely.

— Bitfinex (@bitfinex) ٤ ديسمبر، ٢٠١٧

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.