sharing this from grant hunter.... worth the read.
The exploit itself is very smart. The attacker has used the flaws in Verges code to put an older timestamp on their fake blocks to trick the network into thinking that the fake chain is the real one, by having this broadcast to over 51% of the nodes. They have gained consensus, effectively taking control of the XVG chain. This has meant that the real blocks being mined by legitimate miners, are seen as the false ones, and therefore are ignored (orphaned).
The reason why trading is still possible, is because the fake chain is still verifying transactions so people can still trade the coin, however, the attacker is adding extra blocks and making extra free XVG for themselves.
No matter how much they try to PR spin their way around this, if what you say is true and the attacker basically gained control of the blockchain to the point they are printing and trading coins by themselves and for themselves, XVG as it is now is ruined. Instead of being so incredibly arrogant, the dev(s) should've shut it down until they could hardfork.
Great write up summing the course of events, it should be posted other places for visibility. As you well say, people oughta get as informed as they can be.