Currency.com faces Russian cyberattack hours after exit
Crypto firm Currency.com faced a Russian cyber attack just hours after leaving the market amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, London-based billionaire and crypto chief Viktor Prokopenya said the firm faced huge backlash after it decided to pull the plug, with call-centre staff immediately facing abuse and death threats.
On top of this, the Kremlin launched a huge cyber attack on the company, attempting to crash its systems with a “distributed denial of service” (DDoS).
On this, Prokopenya said: “You don’t have to be a rocket scientist. We’ve been attacked before, like all financial firms, but the size of this was incredible: ten times anything we have ever seen.”
DDoS has been used to target a number of firms pulling out of Russia, and it has been used against Ukraine’s defence ministry and finance sector throughout the war.
It is understood Currency.com is the first crypto firm to exit Russia, and it coincides with the demand in crypto spiking as Russians attempt to avoid financial sanctions.
Alex Bornyakov, deputy digital minister of Ukraine, said: “Russians attack any point of view that differs from their propaganda because they are literally afraid of the truth.
We welcome Currency.com’s decision to turn off their services to Russians and encourage the other crypto exchanges to do the same. We are communicating with several crypto exchanges and I know that some of them are also considering withdrawing from Russia.”
Currency.com confirmed the attack had failed, and plans to further test and enhance its systems and processes to ensure it continues to remain robust and resistant to potential threats.
Currency.com also strongly condemns the war in Ukraine and has donated over $1m to humanitarian charities in Ukraine.