The instant shift to digital spaces due to pandemic situations and new trends of remote work has paved broader space for cybercriminals. In addition, due to the global pandemic situation, cyberattacks have risen 600%, which is the devastating result of rapid growth in cryptocurrency. Most of us have witnessed any kind of prank, data breaches, hacks, and various other frauds in our digital life, but due to the technological boom, cyber crimes are pretty much notable which one had watched in the James Bond movie series. Criminal organizations having support from international governments are attacking the digital business using high-tech cyber weapons to either shut down the companies or to demand ransom money.
The Emergence of Cryptocurrency- CyberAttacks at its Peak!
Cryptocurrency is considered the first decentralized P2P payment gateway. Digital currencies are neither created nor regulated by the government around the globe. Moreover, none of any users have complete control over such currency.
Now, it’s the perfect time to analyze the cryptocurrency economy, diving into its history, and examine the technical design as numerous types of businesses are thinking to make use of cryptocurrency and accepting such non-regulated currency as the payment source. But due to its anonymous traits, the concept of potential threats is raising cybersecurity concerns. No doubt, cryptocurrencies are viable and an important part of the digital economy. The total economic market share of cryptocurrency is around $8.69 billion and is still in the growing phase.
However, cryptocurrency growth is directly linked with the number of rising cyberattacks and terrorism. It’s providing secret payment channels without the government’s intervention due to which digital currency is getting famous in the criminal groups.
Top 2021- Cyber Attacks News in Crypto Space
Liquid Crypto Exchange
The Japanese-based crypto exchange named Liquid Global was attacked by the anonymous criminal group, as stated in the Info Security magazine the exchange lost nearly $97 million of various cryptocurrencies. Due to the digital wallet breach, the virtual assets were moved into cold wallets. The deposits and withdrawals over this platform were suspended due to security concerns.
Poly Network Crypto Exchange
The poly network, also named as decentralized finance ( Defi) crypto project, was compromised by the cyber attacker the previous week, according to the CNBC report $600 worth of crypto tokens were stolen. This company provides the service of token swapping from one online ledger to another blockchain. The hacker group manipulated through the weakest link in the network through which they were quite able to transfer exchange assets to their own digital wallets. Amazingly, the hackers behind this chaos are invited to become the security advisor and are promised half a million for restoring the user-owned crypto funds.
Cream Finance Platform
Famous crypto-providing platform “Cream” was hit by the cyberattackers, looking into the ZDNet article, over $34 million of crypto tokens were stolen in which AMP was worth $24 million and ETH was worth $9.9 million. According to the cream, there was a vulnerable space in the platform while AMP was integrated, this leads to the malicious bus which was the major source of this activity. The platform is deliberately working with the law agencies to track down the hackers.
Cybersecurity Risk Associated with Cryptocurrency
Due to the technological boom, the rising number of cyberattacks is impacting cryptocurrencies at large. Due to the presence of loopholes and weak linkages between the security, the news regarding the beaches and heist is making sense of insecurity to invest in the currency which is not regulated nor legalized in many of the countries. The black hat hackers are involved in cryptocurrency exploitation, digital identity theft, and various other crimes which are disrupting the crypto space.
The cryptocurrency is surrounded by lots of risks and threats and due to the anonymous characteristics, it’s more likely to be targeted by criminals.
Digital Wallets Breaches
The crypto investors are using two types of wallets, hot and cold respectively. Hot crypto wallets operate with an internet connection which increases the risk of getting hacked. Cryptocurrency news in their article listed that in may 2019 the criminal activists attacked the Binance hot digital wall and were able to steal $41 million which is a cost of more than 7,000 bitcoin tokens.
On another hand, diving into the concept of cold crypto wallets which doesn’t require an internet connection doesn’t make them of utmost protection. Spotlighting the case of Gerald Cotton, the CEO of crypto exchanges was the only legitimate password holder, when he died there were approximately $173 million of crypto tokens were lost as no one can access the wallet, which was owned by 115,000 users.
Unregulated Crypto Exchanges
The cryptocurrency, as well as the crypto exchanges, are decentralized, they are not created or managed by the financial regulatory authorities. Governments’ involvement is also not appreciated. Due to the inconsistency in the regulations of the exchange there lies a greater chance to get scammed as well as there is a mass space of vulnerability due to insufficient security and compliance measures. They are not on that level as the regulated finance companies are as they are regulated by the government. Looking back, the past years were booming with the news of exchanges that tend to either get hacked or were shell scamming the common people.
Technology-Based Ways to Prevent Cyber Attacks
Enhanced Cybersecurity Strategies
The rapid technological adoption and overnight reshaping of the traditional way of working into digital means call for utmost cybersecurity measures. It’s been stated in the global risk report 2021, cyberattacks and insufficient security measures are the most significant challenges which humans are facing over the decade. Therefore, cybersecurity professionals are working day and night utilizing ultra-modern technology to uplift security measures.
Incorporating AI and Blockchain Technology
The role of artificial intelligence and blockchain to combat cybercrime is quite impressive. Nowadays, the primary focus of blockchain developers is on cryptocurrency, in order to determine the potential risk present in the crypto space as well as making cyber security top-notch.
Zero Trusts Strategise
The crypto exchanges and platforms are obliged to opt for zero-trust strategies in order to prevent criminal activities. Encryption provides another layer of protection to protect valuable virtual currency. Homomorphic encryption is of great interest nowadays in the crypto space as it is helping out to encrypt the transaction and minimizing the security gaps in the wallets.
AI-Driven Identity Verification Systems
To establish a secure and seamless crypto space, SaaS providers have come up with technology-based identity verification software which is very much precise to identify the real identities of the customers as well as authenticates the businesses. They are capable of detecting the potential threat possessed by the crypto customers before getting them on board. Moreover, shell crypto exchanges are also determined. Therefore, the crypto exchanges must adopt KYC/AML compliance in order to make crypto space secure.
Final Thoughts
Wrapping it up, the cyber security professional should take technical assistance to enhance the security measure as the ultra-modern world is evolving and so do the criminal activists. Therefore, blockchain technology is widely used for protecting cryptocurrency from cyberattacks as well as against data tampering. Cryptocurrency growth is dependent on the effectiveness of cybersecurity. Most of the crypto exchanges and platforms become targets because of the insufficient cybersecurity measure.
