The Cardano blockchain was hit by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack late Tuesday in an attempt to steal tokens staked on the network.
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 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.
ADA was up 0.4% in the past 24 hours, trading at 38 cents in Asian morning hours.