The cryptocurrency exchange EtherDelta has been the victim of a large-scale attack. Hackers took more than 300 Ethereum, which would currently be worth more than $250,000.
During the attack, EtherDela’s Cloudfare account was seemingly comprised. The hackers were than able to redirect users to a malicious clone of EtherDelta’s website. Hackers then captured the login details of anyone who attempted to use the site.
Earlier reports had suggested EtherDelta had been subject to a DNS hijacking attack, but it seems to have later become apparent that the attack occurred via EtherDelta’s Cloudfare account.
EtherDelta has been criticized for its slow response to the attack. It took two hours for EtherDelta to acknowledge the attack and warn users via Twitter. However, the website remained online hours after the attack, with funds still being removed from the service even after the hack had been acknowledged. This attack comes just two days after EtherDelta appointed Terry Liu as their CEO.
The ease with which hackers were able to access accounts and siphon off money shows that cryptocurrency is still the wild west of investment and that users need to be wary of the possibility for events like this to happen.
However, some are holding out hope that by examining transactions and addresses related to the hack, it may be possible to track down those responsible. This would go a long way to helping EtherDelta recover from an attack which will have dealt a serious blow to the exchange’s reputation.
