Cryptocurrency exchange service Currency.com said it was hit with a flurry of Russian cyberattacks just hours after its London-based owner, Viktor Prokopenya, announced that the company would stop serving clients in Russia.
The company had approximately 500,000 customers based in Russia before the announcement, with call-centre staff receiving verbal abuse minutes after Prokopenya’s statement.
The UK-based billionaire, who is of Belarussian origin, condemned the actions of the Russian government and the “terrible war” in Ukraine. Several hours later, Currency.com faced the largest cyberattack the company had ever seen, Prokopenya told The Times.
Prokopenya attributed the attack to cybercriminals in Russia, saying “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”.
The cryptocurrency firm was hit with a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS), which involves forcing millions of computers to overload a system by bombarding it with requests.
DDoS attacks have reportedly increased since the outbreak of the war, with the method being used against the Ukrainian government and industries.
While many companies have been pausing or entirely shutting down operations in Russia as part of wider sanctions against the warring nation – including Wise, which was among the first fintechs to restrict payments to Russia – cryptocurrency firms have been more resistant to blanket bans in the region.
Cryptocurrency giant Binance recently came under criticism from financial regulators for refusing to implement this ban, and the company responded by saying it would comply with all international laws, but did see value in banning all Russian users.
While these cryptocurrency firms maintain that blanket banning an entire nation is wrong, Prokopenya believes these companies are mistaken.
“Everybody in the financial community must do their best and make a principled stand,” said Prokopenya.
“You have to denounce Russia’s actions in the strongest possible terms. This is not some [divisive] political issue like Brexit or Trump; it is a terrible war. There is no way to approve of it — nobody approves of it apart from hostages of Russian TV.”
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