As the use of cryptocurrencies is adopted massively, cybersecurity incidents related to these resources also keep growing. A few hours ago the operators of the British EXMO exchange platform announced the temporary disconnection of their servers due to the detection of a denial of service (DoS) attack.
The platform made the situation known through its Twitter account: “Please note that the EXMO website is under DDoS attack. Services will not be temporarily available,” the publication says.
As you will recall, a distributed denial-of-service attack involves using multiple malware-infected systems to send a huge amount of malicious traffic to a web-based application or a specific website, saturating the capacity of the servers and arbitrarily interrupting their operation.
Upon beginning to receive complaints from users, EXMO stated that its security teams were working on containing and correcting these issues. Soon after the platform’s website was normally working again, although EXMO did not issue additional updates. EXMO was temporarily registered with the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) as a virtual asset business until 9 July 2021, following an application submitted in April 2020.
This British cryptocurrency platform, which describes itself as “one of the leading platforms for cryptocurrency investors in Europe,” revealed in December 2020 that unknown attackers were able to withdraw approximately 5% of their total assets after compromising EXMO’s Internet-related wallets, also known as hot wallets.
Unlike hardware wallets (or cold wallets), an Internet-connection wallet temporarily stores these files. EXMO suspended any transaction as a result of this incident, adding that all losses suffered by users will be fully covered.
On the other hand, the platform operators announced the development of new infrastructure for their active wallets, although this plan will be realized in a few months as each blockchain requires a separate server. EXMO’s research is still ongoing, so more details could be revealed over the course of the next few days.
This is not the only recent security-related incident on these platforms. A few days ago, representatives of the XMR.to exchange platform announced that they would completely close their trades after years of participating in Bitcoin and Monero transactions, as they consider that current security conditions allow them to trade normally.
To learn more about computer security risks, malware, vulnerabilities and information technologies, feel free to access the International Cyber Security Institute (IICS) website.
He is a well-known expert in mobile security and malware analysis. He studied Computer Science at NYU and started working as a cyber security analyst in 2003. He is actively working as an anti-malware expert. He also worked for security companies like Kaspersky Lab. His everyday job includes researching about new malware and cyber security incidents. Also he has deep level of knowledge in mobile security and mobile vulnerabilities.
