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Bitcoin exchange platforms are increasingly vulnerable to DDoS attacks as they grow in prominence. In response to this, please find below comments from Kirill Kasavchenko, principal security technologist, EMEA at Arbor Networks. Arbor Networks provides DDoS protection for the world’s most critical enterprise and government networks.

“This latest DDoS attack on Bitfinex hammers home how increased prominence can make businesses more vulnerable to DDoS attacks. The bitcoin market has been a hot topic over the past week, which has led to a surge in buyers. Hackers are notoriously opportunistic, so it makes sense that they’re seizing this opportunity to make it difficult for Bitfinex to maintain usual business activities. Businesses who rely on their website as a route to market must learn lessons from this, and evaluate whether their current DDoS protection could work harder for their business.

“DDoS attacks, alongside other types of cyber threats, are quite common within the cryptocurrency ecosystem. There are few reasons for that. First is the growing audience attention due to incredible growth of Bitcoin. In response to this growth, attackers might launch DDoS attacks against exchanges not only as extortion threat, but also as a way to manipulate cryptocurrency rates by making trading platforms unavailable. Last but not least, cryptocurrencies do not have any legal status in most countries. This means prosecution of attackers is often problematic not only from technical, but also from a legal point of view.”