Bitcoin.org is battling another spam attack. The most prominent and the first website that hosts information and updates about the leading cryptocurrency Bitcoin has gone offline. It has reportedly been hacked. The hackers are also demanding Bitcoins.
Earlier today, Bitcoin.org site curator who goes by the name Cobra has confirmed that the site’s security was compromised and hackers have been able to publish a scam announcement on the site. They also confirmed that the site has been hacked and that’s why it is offline.
A Bitcoin developer, Matt Corallo published a tweet in which he said: “Looks like Bitcoin.org got hacked and the entire site replaced with a scam asking for free Bitcoin. Do not send funds to that address.”
While the hosting and domain name provider, Namecheap has taken down the Bitcoin.org website, it could take days before the site is restored. Cobra has confirmed that the site could be down for the next few days.
The sam was brought to the notice when users saw that there is a fake Bitcoin giveaway announcement published on the site. With the fake notice, the scammers have also reportedly been able to sweep worth $17,000 to their fake addresses.
Explaining what went wrong and how the scammers were able to make their way to breach the site’s security, Cobra noted that the hackers exploited a vulnerability in Bitcoin.org DNS. They have confirmed that however, the site’s Cloudflare accounts and servers remain intact.
This is not the first time that the site has been compromised. Earlier in July, the site was also attacked and faced problems. Incidents of scams and hacks have been increasing and hackers continue to exploit the vulnerabilities. Over the past 30 days, there have been several incidents of crypto investment platforms being hacked.
