After the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, the favorite target of cybercriminals is cryptocurrency exchanges. In the latest, the popular Bitcoin and Litecoin exchange platform BTC-E.com suffered a series of massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks disrupting its service and forcing the platform to go offline.
It is worth mentioning that due to the surging value of Bitcoin its use by cybercriminals is at its peak like never before. At the same time, Bitcoin-related scams are also being used to ripoff unsuspected users. To protect yourself from such scams it is highly recommended to use a legitimate Bitcoin trader app at all cost.
The attacks started on 5th June when a Tweet came from the official Twiter account of BTC-E informing its customers that “Due to the increased load on the Bitcoin network may increase the time to confirm the transaction.”
Due to the increased load on the Bitcoin network may increase the time to confirm the transaction #btce
— BTC-E (@btcecom) June 5, 2017
Later on, on 6th June in a Tweet, it was revealed that the platform is under DDoS attack, but no further information was disclosed to the customers. According to CoinTelegraph so far there hasn’t been any news if the problem has been resolved or not neither there is any follow-up Tweet.
We are currently under ddos #btce
— BTC-E (@btcecom) June 6, 2017
Naturally, BTC-E customers were not happy with the situation and took out their anger on Twitter. Here are some Tweeter reactions from upset customers:
This, however, is not the first time when BTC-E has suffered such attacks. In 2016, the platform had to shut down its operation for hours after suffering DDoS attacks from unknown cyber criminals. Also, BTC-E forum in 2014 suffered a large-scale data breach in which its entire database was stolen.
The same database along with ten other Bitcoin forum databases are currently being sold on a Dark Web marketplace for USD 400 (BTC 0.3817).
At the time of publishing this article, BTC-E website was online.
Targeting Bitcoin forums is profitable for the cybercriminal community. It’s time for such platforms to implement proper security measures and ensure that customers’ data is secure.
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