News broke yesterday that Hong Kong based Bitcoin exchange Bitfinex fell victim to a DDoS attack, following the SEC warning to investors to ask exchange providers about ‘substantial risks of theft or loss, including from hacking’ in a warning on cryptocurrencies. Igal Zeifman, Security Evangelist at Imperva commented below.
Igal Zeifman, Security Evangelist at Imperva:
“As the bitcoin price continues to fluctuate, we anticipate continued attacks. As we found in Q3, these types of network assaults overall grew more persistent as an alarming number of attacks escalated over 100Mpps. And in Q3 2017, we saw attacks targeting a relatively high number of cryptocurrency exchanges and services. This was likely related to a recent spike in the price of bitcoin, which more than doubled in the span of the quarter. As a result, bitcoin made the top-10 most targeted industries list, despite its relatively small size and web presence.
This young and exponentially growing industry presents a lucrative opportunity for extortionists and other cybercriminals who are always on the lookout for potentially vulnerable and high-profit targets. In this specific case, the attacks could have been also launched to manipulate bitcoin prices, something offenders have been known to do.”
