Digital currency operators and Bitcoin (Bitcoin) exchanges are the most common targets of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks according to a report titled “Q3 2017 Global DDoS Threat Landscape” published by Imperva Incapsula, CoinTelegraph reported.
The company said that three out of four Bitcoin sites were victims of DDoS attacks in the third quarter of 2017 alone.
The report cites that the reason behind the attacks is the phenomenal rise of Bitcoin price, which increased by more than twofold during the quarter.
Part of the report reads:“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. Overall, more than 73 percent of all Bitcoin sites using our services were attacked this quarter, making it one of the most targeted industries, despite its relatively small size and web presence.”
Other sectors like Internet service providers and online gambling and gaming operators were also hit by DDoS attacks. For network layer DDoS attacks, the countries that experienced the highest number of attacks and number of targets include the US, China, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex tweeted today it was under heavy (DDoS) and its application programming interface was down.
We are currently under heavy DDOS. API is also down. We are working on further mitigation.
— Bitfinex (@bitfinex) December 12, 2017