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The Cardano blockchain successfully mitigated a DDoS attack that attempted to steal staked tokens, with no significant impact on the network's operation.
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The attack involved transactions executing numerous smart contracts and was halted after a Cardano developer's post revealed a vulnerability, leading to the attacker's funds being taken.
The Cardano blockchain was hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack late Tuesday. However, the attack was unsuccessful and mitigated before any damage was caused, and the network continued to operate as usual.
DDoS is a common attack vector in which the attacker floods a server (or a blockchain) with spam traffic to prevent users from accessing connected online services and sites.
Fluid Token chief technology officer @ElRaulito_cnft said on X that the attack began on block 10,487,530, each transaction executing 194 smart contracts. The attacker spent 0.9 ADA per transaction and filled each block with several transactions – attempting to stress the network.
Philip Disarro, founder of Cardano development firm Anastasia, said the DDoS could be stopped immediately by deregistering the stake credential used by the attacker. The attack was stopped shortly after Disarro’s post.
“DDOSer halted his attack after reading my tweet in an effort to protect his funds. Alas, they were too late and the pillaging of their funds is already in progress,” he said.
A Cardano developer later clarified that the DDoS attack was aimed at disrupting the system and not to steal staked tokens.
ADA was up 0.4% in the past 24 hours, trading at 38 cents in Asian morning hours.
UPDATE (June 26, 11:45 UTC): Updates story with response from Cardano developer.