Bitcoin Exchange OKPay was hit with a DDoS yesterday (January 21, 2016) at approximately 09:00 UTC, which briefly resulted in a cessation of select services – unique in this cyber assault was an extorted demand for an undisclosed payment, according to an OKPay statement.
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OKPay like many other exchanges has had to deflect a litany of DDoS attacks during its existence. In addition to briefly making some services unavailable yesterday, the attack also extorted payment, threatening further attacks this week against the exchange. Initial attempts to attack OKPay were allayed by the enabling of mitigation strategies to block it.
We will not respond to any extortion attempts nor pay these criminals under any circumstances
In an act of defiance against the attacks and the extorting party, OKPay issued a cursory statement, indicating it would not give in to any such demands. The official statement can be read in full below:
“First of all, we would like to make one thing clear. We will not respond to any extortion attempts nor pay these criminals under any circumstances. We have dealt with DDoS attacks before, and have recently been strengthening our defenses to deal with such issues. However, recent attacks may caused some disruption for our users, so we are publishing this note to explain our clients and partners what had happened.”
