CFDs are complex instruments and come with a high risk of losing money rapidly due to leverage. 75.00% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing your money.
Apart from being crypto exchanges, what else is common between Poloniex, Kraken, Coinsecure, BTC-E and Bitfinex? They’ve all suffered DDoS attacks.
DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks are a form of cyber-attack involving hackers flooding the servers of exchanges with more requests than they can handle. Such attacks often start from multiple sources, making it more difficult for exchanges to curb or stop the attacks.
These attacks aren’t new. Online shopping platforms, banking systems and online service providers have been victims of DDoS attacks with crypto exchanges recently becoming a target. With this in mind, let’s take a closer look at DDoS, crypto and the associated risks.
There are three important things that set cryptocurrencies apart from fiat currencies.
While cryptocurrencies offer several benefits, there are certain adverse consequences of them being purely virtual. Among them are DDoS attacks.
For a crypto exchange, a DDoS attack can mean lost revenue, loss of customer loyalty and damage to software and hardware. When an exchange is under attack, users are unable to access their crypto wallets or accounts. Also, users won’t be able to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, losing potential profit opportunities. Such a disruption can, at times, be significant enough to affect cryptocurrency prices. For instance, in 2017, certain bitcoin exchanges were victims of a coordinated DDoS attack, which ultimately tanked bitcoin prices by around $2,000.
There have also been several instances of hackers demanding huge ransoms from exchanges to put an end to the DDoS attack. Since DDoS attacks can affect crypto prices, hackers may try to use such means to make huge profits.
The cryptocurrency market could continue to expand for some time. Therefore, exchanges need to address and safeguard themselves against DDoS attacks. It’s important for crypto exchanges to use powerful DDoS protection, which gets triggered the moment there’s an attack. Such DDoS protection systems need to be robust enough to withstand high traffic attacks and intelligently filter the traffic to ensure legitimate user traffic is not affected in any way.
As for traders and investors, they need to ensure they’re trading with regulated brokers and exchanges. For instance, traders in the UK should ensure their broker is FCA regulated. FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) is among the world’s most reputable regulatory agencies that has several regulatory protocols for the protection of customer funds.
Disclaimer
If you liked this educational article, please consult our Risk Disclosure Notice before starting to trade. Trading leveraged products involves a high level of risk. You may lose more than your invested capital.
