Bitcoin Buzz | SCMP’s Bitcoin Morning Report: Bitcoin exchanges under ‘massive and concerted attack’
Blockchain’s chief security officer Andreas Antonopoulos revealed a major denial of service attack on Bitcoin was underway at around 2am Hong Kong time.
A denial of service attack exploited the ‘transaction malleability’ weakness in the Bitcoin network, he said. As Antonopoulos told me last night, before a genuine transaction is confirmed in the Blockchain [public ledger system], the unique hash code that is generated can be manipulated in an attempt to send double the amount of Bitcoin.
The impact brought several major exchanges to suspend Bitcoin withdrawals, too, including the largest Bitstamp and BTC-e trading platforms.
SCMP will have full coverage of the attack later today.
John Normand, the head of foreign exchange strategy at the investment bank, said in a research note, the digital currency is not a sound investment. Despite the “transformative effects of evolving technologies – Bitcoin looks like an innovation worth limiting exposure to,” he said, reports Wall Street Journal’s MoneyBeat.