Cyber-attacks over the recent years have caused strong stirs among corporations and governments enough to warrant the needed attention to fight them. A recent and more damaging attack is the dual attack’s that hit the Bitcoin Virtual currency systems, a decentralized p2p network-based virtual currency that is traded into US dollars and other currencies.
The mode of these attacks was a DDoS attack (distributed denial of service). A DDoS attack is an attack in which a multiple of compromised systems attack a single target, thereby causing denial of service for users of the targeted system. It works by flooding a web server with bad traffic enough to either shut it down or stop users from performing specific functions online, like making payment or making good on a bill. The motive behind a cyber-attack is taken very seriously to determine whether it is coming from another government, a hacker or a criminal. The attack on the bitcoin virtual system is suspected to be profit motivated, a way for the attackers to cause panic in the exchange then take advantage of the falling prices. The website of Bitcoin, instawallet was forced to shut down after hackers gained access to its database. Instawallet was notoriously insecure as it used a URL password mechanism for protection. . Perpetrators of DDoS attacks are usually nit caught due to nature by which the attack is initiated.
There are a number of ways to prevent a DDoS attack. Most institutions, to prevent DDoS attacks, are turning toward service providers for DDoS mitigation. Others are buying and implementing in-house DDoS detection and mitigation technology. Some ISPs are offering service intended to detect and remove malicious traffic before it gets to the clients service. At&t and Verizon are providing this service. Other providers run dedicated data centers with high capacity networks that scrub out bad