Bitcoin.org, the first crypto-related website, is currently under siege, with the attackers putting up a fake giveaway on the site. The website’s owner, who goes by the pseudonym Cobra, disclosed this news through a tweetstorm earlier today, noting that an investigation is underway to discover how the hackers put up the scam. Cobra added that this might take a while, and the website will be down for some time.
Reportedly, the website’s visitors got a pop-up message welcoming them to send money to a Bitcoin (BTC/USD) wallet. The person on the receiving end promised to double these funds before sending them back to the initial sender. Per the pop-up message, the giveaway is the Bitcoin Foundation’s way of rewarding its community, which has supported it over the years.
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The message then offered users four plans, starting from $10 (£7.33) to $10,000 (£7,325.15), adding this was an offer limited to the first 10,000 users. While it is unclear how long the scam has been up on the website, the hackers’ address had received over $17,700 (£12,964.36) before the website went down. At the moment, Bitcoin.org cannot be reached.
Cobra faults Cloudflare
According to Cobra, the problems facing Bitcoin.org might be emanating from the website’s recent migration to web infrastructure and website security firm Cloudflare. Blaming Cloudflare, Cobra said,
Cobra further noted that Bitcoin.org’s Cloudflare account was not compromised and that the server was in tip-top condition, apart from the fact that it did not get any traffic during the hack. The pseudonymous website operator concluded that the attackers must have exploited a vulnerability in the Domain Name System (DNS).
Before this, Bitcoin.org suffered a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack in July this year. At the time, Cobra did not have an issue with Cloudflare. Instead, he noted that he had never thought of using Cloudflare, but the DDoS attack helped him understand why people do.
This news comes as BTC continues recovering from a bear market that saw it trade as low as $39,787.61 (£29,142.43) on Tuesday. At the time of writing, BTC is changing hands at $44,132.76 (£32,325.04) after gaining 4.40% over the past 24 hours.
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