The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) website went down on Friday night but came back online during publication. The institution has not yet provided official reasons, and social media rumors suggest that a DDoS attack may have occurred.

The online community also noted that the SEC website downtime coincided with a stronger drop in Bitcoin (BTC), which is currently losing 4.4%, falling back below the $70,000 level.

SEC Website Not Working, DDoS Attack Speculations

The initial reports that the SEC website had stopped working began to appear around 3 AM GMT. For the next 5 hours, the situation did not change, and attempting to access SEC.gov redirected to SEC.gov/core/install.php, which displayed the message "Page not found." However, at the time of writing, the website was again operational.

3 hours after since the first reports, #SEC website is still down… https://t.co/nSG1hiiUPf pic.twitter.com/GNYbDvshpe

— JustDario 🏊‍♂️ (@DarioCpx) March 15, 2024

Apart from fragmentary information on X (formerly Twitter), it has been difficult to find more details online about what caused the SEC website outage, when exactly it occurred, and how long it may last.

However, there are speculations that a 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 or cyberattack on the domain of the U.S. regulator may have occurred.

Cybersec. SEC. Website. Tech intel:#BREAKING The Security Exchange Commission[SEC] website has been taken down.

Either ddos attack. Or cyberattack.https://t.co/rKGhSyrstT

Developing... pic.twitter.com/M5UecqPluW

— WayneTech SPFX®️ (@WayneTechSPFX) March 15, 2024

Interestingly, some services offered through the domain were still working. One of them was the EDGAR search engine, which is the register of U.S. companies supervised by the commission.

It's worth remembering that two months ago, there was turmoil online related to a potential hack targeting the SEC. However, at that time, it involved an agency-owned X account, and the downtime coincided with the waiting period for the approval of the first spot Bitcoin ETF in the USA.

Bitcoin Began Dropping at the Same Time

Interestingly, Twitter users pointed out that the moment the SEC website went offline, it coincided with stronger drops in 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, which also began in the middle of the night (GMT time).

Currently, BTC is falling more than 4% and hitting daily lows at the $66,800 level, clearly dropping below $77,000 and moving nearly 10% away from historical highs.

The sec website is down from possible ddos attacks, and #Bitcoin has lost 5k in value since it happened..

Coincidence? 🖤🦢🩸

— Vladdy 🐸 (@VisualsVlad) March 15, 2024

The drop is most likely just a coincidence, especially since the SEC website's return to online did not cause the exchange rate to rebound.