Posted on February 29, 2020 at 7:10 PM

Okex and Bitfinex Hit by DDoS Attacks, as Bitfinex Goes Offline

Bitfinex has joined the growing list of exchanges that have experienced a direct denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

The DDoS attack on Bitfinex and OKEx is a traditional one where the hackers generally test a network or system’s defenses by flooding them with lots of transactions.

Bitfinex has confirmed the attack when the exchange’s technical team made a statement to inform the users of the attack. However, before the exchange released the information, it has already been hit by the DDoS attackers.

In a statement made by the firm on its twitter page, it said the exchange is still investigating the situation to find out more about the attack and the extent of damage caused. The exchange also pointed out that it will let users and the public know about its findings from its investigation.

Attack affected Bitfinex’s platform

From the status page report on Bitfinex’s platform, the system was 20 times slower than usual as the response time increased to more than 160ms. In a normal circumstance, the operational response time of the exchange is usually 24ms.

On an interesting note, this attack is coming when Bitcoin and other crypto coins are not stable, and may likely drop in value in the coming days.

Bitfinex has resumed normal service

After Bitfinex announced the investigation and a possible solution, it took less than three hours for the firm to fix the problem and return back to full operation. The exchange has since made a statement regarding the resumption of its operation.

According to Bitfinex,  “Services on the Bitfinex platform have resumed. We implemented a stricter protection level as a result of our platform coming under a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack.”

Bitfinex further noted that it has resolved all issues relating to the DDoS attack, even though investigation about the attack is still ongoing.

In a related development, the value of bitcoin shed by 2 percent to $8,500. This occurred when the Bitfinex network was under DDoS attack. The network and portal of the exchange were unavailable for almost an hour because of the attack.

OKEx suffered similar attack yesterday

Interestingly, OKEx suffered a similar fate yesterday as its portal was also infiltrated with DDoS attack.

However, the exchange revealed that the technical team was able to wade off the attack, and the derivatives and spot trading platforms are operational with no issues.

Paulo Ardoino, Chief Technology Officer at Bitfinex, said he wasn’t aware OKEx was also attacked. But the fact that the attack on Bitfinex was an elaborated one shows that the attackers were fully prepared.

While the technical team at OKEx was able to quell and prevent the attack from any significant damage, Bitfinex was not so lucky. Although no financial loss was recorded at Bitfinex, its system was disrupted for almost an hour, which gave users some concern.

There is still no information about the identity of the attackers, but an investigation is still ongoing to find more details about the attack.

The most obvious thing is the fact that if these attackers have succeeded, it could have led to the loss of millions of dollars.

Recently, Binance suffered a similar attack where the company lost bitcoin worth about $40 million.

Serious DDOS attack knocking sites offline

The DDoS surge in a particular site’s network can cause the affected site to go offline completely. When there is an insufficient defense mechanism for the attack, the platform can collapse entirely, which forces it to go offline.

The end users are usually not aware of the situation, and may not be able to access the services offered by the affected server.