How we survived a 2nd bot attack

When someone’s hack hits the fun — do not forget why you launched your product!

4 min readJan 28, 2019

24hr ago, in the middle of the European night, and late night at the USA…when we shared very good news with our community (Our soft cap is reached!!): WE WERE HACKED.

It happened there, in front of #p2p members eyes, at our Telegram 13+ Community. Part of the team was sleeping, but our USA based Founder Mr Keeley C. Wilkinson was there, watching tied hands, without any possibility to do something.

‘’It started around 5 am GMT time. I was having good communication with our Community about the latest #P2PGlobalNetwrok updates including the token sale end date extension because of the investor’s interest. Then, in a few minutes, one by one they were out of our communication — deleted! Our admins and managers were kicked, too. Me & company partners, also!’’, explains Mr Wilkinson and add that ‘’..after one hour, from 13 000 members we slept on 1000'’.

The Saddest day for P2P Community

All team members gathered quickly, trying to find a solution, investigate and stop this hack. We were scared and sad because we did not want our members to think we deleted them.

We’ve checked the ‘’recent activities’’ — option available in the telegram group. Here’s what happened:

▪️ 25 unknown bots are added by different new users (they joined the group a few seconds before that);
▪️ Some users double joined;
▪️ They find a way to ban #joinhiderbot and kick all admins!
▪️ No admin is available, but have admin rights;
▪️ They keep deleting our admins each time we join;
▪️ 12K our community members are deleted!!!!!
▪️ It is happening again and again, even today

Our dev team & advisors investigate what happens, still. By ‘’scrolling back’’ across recent activities, we’ve found the moment before hack:

From double joining (however is that possible) to ‘’adding some people’’ which is also strange.

Founder’s (Unknown person for us) added Thomas (also unknown) and hack started.

Member by member ‘’left’’ our Community but NO ONE LEFT, They are kicked!

We know that because of our admins who also ‘’left’’ and joined again, and ‘’left’’ again. Rollercoaster even today. Even NOW.

We shared this screenshot and what happened via our social media with an honest call to action — please, help us. Help us because this is a new type of bot attack and we need to stop it now before it spreads.

One expert contacts us back, and he thinks it might be Decrypted telegram Bot Windows Malware, investigated 1 week ago by security firm Forcepoint Labs. Whatever it is, we use this opportunity to ask Telegram (AGAIN) to help us investigate and stop it, because it is still ongoing. They remotely manage our Community, still delete whoever join, still kick our management.

WHAT NOW

In light of the 2nd hack on our project, we have to move forward: #P2P invited all old and new members to join our SPECIAL CONTEST with the motto ‘’We won’t hack back, but we fight for what we started’’.

And we started solving the very serious issue.

We hit the soft cap.

We have 23K registered users.

We won’t let this stop us. It’s just a Telegram…our platform’s security is so strong, that when they tried (at the same time!!) they couldn't harm us.

We won’t let anyone fight against unemployment benefits we provide! People need this solution in order to be safer, stronger and ready for any distress situation. We are birthed with the aim to solve the burning problem of unemployment that raises out of unavoidable and unfortunate life incidents. We realize that unavoidable circumstances can lead to unfortunate circumstances and problems.

We are here when YOU need us most!

This won’t stop #p2p efforts! We are here because of the bigger hack — system hack — #P2PGlobalNetwork fights for your safety and stability once you become unemployed & to help our members achieve basic amenities in any distress situation of life.

That’s why, in light of the 2nd hack, we have to move forward: #P2P is inviting you to register for our: