Popular digital currency forum BitcoinTalk has been taken offline following a social engineering attack that resulted in a server compromise.

The attack is said to have targeted the site's ISP, a company called NFOrce that is based in the Netherlands. During a social engineering attack, an attacker tries to manipulate the target with the goal of convincing them to divulge passwords or other sensitive information.

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The compromise was announced via the official BitcoinTalk Twitter account. Operator Theymos later took to the bitcoin subreddit to offer a more detailed explanation, writing:

"The forum's ISP NFOrce managed to get tricked into giving an attacker access to the server. I think that the attacker had access for only about 12 minutes before I noticed it and had the server disconnected, so he probably wasn't able to get a complete dump of the database."

Theymos said that BitcoinTalk could remain offline for as many as 60 hours following the incident, and cautioned users to "act as though your password hashes, PMs, emails, etc. were compromised".

Future updates about the situation will be posted to the Twitter account, according to Theymos, and a full report will be published once the forum is back online.

NFOrce and Theymos did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Image via Shutterstock

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