Crypto Exchange Bitfinex Resumes Operations After Hacker Assault

(Bloomberg) -- Bitfinex, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, said it has resumed normal operations after suffering a so-called denial-of-service attack earlier.

“The Bitfinex exchange was the target of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack this morning,” Kasper Rasmussen, head of marketing, said in an e-mailed statement. “The exchange was offline for an hour following the DDoS attack; however, the exchange is back online now. The attack only impacted trading operations, and user accounts and their associated funds/account balances were not at risk at any point during the attack.”

Bitcoin touched a low for the day, dropping as much as 2.2 percent to $7,360, as the attack prevented users from accessing the exchange. The largest cryptocurrency reversed losses and is now gaining less than 1 percent.

The exchange suffered multiple DDoS attacks late last year. In August 2016, the exchange said it was hacked for a loss of $68 million. The British Virgin Islands-based company had been down as it went through “unplanned maintenance” earlier.

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