CoinFire’s executive editor announced just after 2 p.m. EST on Friday that the site’s domain “was stolen” and that the team was trying to get it back.
Shortly thereafter, Coin Fire’s Twitter handle also got hijacked. It’s clear that in the 13 minutes between the second and third tweet below that a different person had taken over writing:
“Well, looks like the XPY supporters got what they wanted,” Mike from Coin Fire wrote at /r/bitcoin. He provided further details:
“They logged in to our domain registrar account and had our domain taken away from us. We are working to resolve it but we aren't sure we are going to get it back. Just wanted to give everyone a heads up.”
He followed up in a comment below: “We've opened up a ticket with our registrar. So far the only response we have received is that the changes were authorized and verified.”
By 2:55 p.m. EST, the Twitter account had been deleted. Here is a screenshot of the last tweets:
Around noon EST on Friday, I noticed a CoinFire.cf had turned into a parked domain. As of 2:45 p.m. EST, the site looks like this:
The follow-up tweets on CoinFire’s compromised account all referenced the site’s recent reporting that the SEC had begun an investigation into GAW Miners.
“The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened an investigation of GAW Miners and its CEO Josh Garza, according to CoinFire, a Bitcoin news site, which on Tuesday cited ‘1,000 pages of a [leaked] investigation file,’" Ars Technica reported Tuesday.
“CoinFire did not publish the documents but described them to include a ‘bombshell draft of a potential enforcement litigation action against the company.’ It cited SEC draft language accusing GAW of being in violation of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, an anti-fraud provision.”
This isn’t the first time CoinFire’s site has come under attack. Its editor also reported a “massive DDOS attack” back in September.
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