Russian cryptocurrency exchange Livecoin hacked, services disrupted

Russian cryptocurrency exchange Livecoin has announced it was hacked and lost control of some of its servers, as cybercriminals modified exchange rates to 10-15 times their normal values

Russian cryptocurrency exchange Livecoin has announced it was hacked and lost control of some of its servers, warning customers to stop using its services, as cybercriminals modified exchange rates to 10-15 times their normal values.

Livecoin is ranked as the 173rd cryptocurrency exchange on the internet, with roughly $16 million in daily transactions.

The company posted the message on its official website. The attack appeared to have occured on the night between December 23 and December 24.

"Hackers appear to have taken control of the Livecoin infrastructure and then proceeded to modify the exchange rates to gigantic and unrealistic values," reports ZDNet.

The hackers tweaked the exchange rate for Bitcoin from the regular $23,000/BTC to more than $450,000/BTC, Ether grew from $600/ETH to $15,000, and Ripple price increased from $0.27/XRP to more than $17/XRP.

Livecoin described the incident as a "carefully planned attack, which has been prepared, as we assume, over the last few months."

"We lost control of all of our servers, backend and nodes. Thus, we were not able to stop our service in time. Our news channels were compromised as well," the company said in the message.

--IANS

na/