Today’s trading landscape is advanced in the digital world, from trading securities to digital trading currencies that have no backing of value than the real world currencies backed by fiat and banking systems. We can easily conclude that cryptocurrencies are backed by hype too, where we see a rise and fall of digital currencies in value based on the law of supply and demand with volume. The technology and trading itself are still young compared to FOREX and Stocks; therefore, the platforms and intellectual properties of the industry, in general, is targeted by cybercriminals.
Voyager cryptocurrency platform is the end receiver of the cyberattack
Three days ago, another cryptocurrency platform fell victim to a cyberattack where it reached the point that they have to halt their services and perform some “maintenance” on their system. The affected platform is identified as Voyager. The platform is a broker that provides services to investors to trade assets using the Voyager mobile app. Voyager based on its growth rate of 40x multiplier in 12 months is remarkable, there is a potential that this company might surpass $200 million in value under management.
On the 28th of December, Voyager tweeted that they are currently undergoing maintenance initially without disclosing what happened.
Later on, they disclosed that an attack targeted the platform, prompting them to cease trading and cancel all limit orders temporarily. Voyager’s excellent news was able to ward off the threat and fix whatever they had to fix because they eventually announced that the customer funds are safe.
Voyager stated that the attempted heist was not successful. An estimated 24 hour time frame has lapsed before they could bring back their services. Compared to other platforms in the past where successful heists lead to some drawback, which is a hit on their public trust. To view a chronological list of Cryptocurrency heists, you may visit the blog section of Selfkey
Voyager detected the intrusion while the hackers were at it, as part of their mitigation, they logged out users from the app and suggested they reset their password and set up the 2-factor authentication (2FA). A robust security system and vigilant threat intelligence team prevented a successful cyberheist on the platform. Nothing much is known about the cyberattack, but a clue via their tweet about a DNS Threat.
No cryptocurrency funds will circulate the dark web as Voyager foiled the attack too bad for the bad guys. Bitcoin mixers will have to lay low for now, as they won’t have any client-based heist to hide their digital footprints. A gentle reminder to all cryptocurrency users though, that bitcoin transactions are traceable through the ledger called the blockchain. Yes, you read it right, though it will be difficult, nothing is ever untraceable once transactions are recorded in the blockchain.
