XRP Ledger’s soaring network activity raises fears of DDOS attacks

The XRP Ledger (XRPL), a network powered by Ripple, is experiencing an increase in network activity known as distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks, according to decentralized online exchange Magnet X.

According to DEX, the network was affected by a surge in daily transactions from hundreds of accounts, disrupting its functionality and hampering its speed. Notably, the network has seen an average of 5 million transactions since December 28, with attackers consuming up to 5,000 XRP in network fees per day.

“The attacker’s strategy is simple: hundreds (possibly thousands) of different wallets are sending 0.000001 XRP to this wallet: rxRpSNb1VktvzBz8JF2oJC6qaww6RZ7Lw. It’s unclear what their motives were. Whether Ripple itself is testing their blockchain or bad actors decide to take down the network,” Magnet X added.

XRPL suffered a massive DDOS attack.

Since December 26, 2023, hundreds of accounts have been conducting millions of transactions every day to block the network or at least slow it down.

XRPL has never seen such a surge in activity.

Since December 28, approximately 5,000,000… pic.twitter.com/woTeIyAcwc

— MagneticX (@MagneticXRPL) January 7, 2024

Viewing the wallet on XRP blockchain explorer platform Bithomp shows that it has been flagged as a scam and the wallet continues to accept XRP deposits. At press time, the wallet contained more than 11,400 XRP units, worth approximately $6,400.

Source: Bithomp

However, Mayukha Vadari, senior software developer at XRPL, did just that refute Perception of attack. He said the increase was due to increased Inscription trading activity and potential fraud within the network.

“There is a (somewhat scam) project selling XRPL inscriptions, and their website creates a bunch of new accounts for everyone so they can send more spam.”

Meanwhile, XRPScan data confirms that activity on the network is booming, with Ledger surpassing 5 million active accounts earlier today.

XRP Ledger has over 5 million active accounts: https://t.co/FNRMYddB5Y pic.twitter.com/twe4sCUcPJ

— XRPScan (@xrpscan) January 8, 2024

Affected nodes

On January 6, the “attack” continued to negatively impact Magnet X nodes, causing them to become overloaded and slowed down.

As a result, some applications on the platform are experiencing disruptions in accessing transaction history and network updates.

“We worked hard to optimize the code, adjust the node configuration, and purchase more resources. Now the problem has been solved.”