For 10 years, attackers managed to steal more than $ 1.2 billion in cryptocurrency

Source: Kommersant

Cybersecurity experts believe that cryptocurrencies, wallets and blockchain infrastructure are not so well protected from hacking, as is commonly believed. Proof of this can be the fact that in 10 years the attackers were able to steal more than $ 1.2 billion in cryptocurrency. It is clear that with the change in the rate of the coins themselves, this figure may change, but the fact remains that enough has been stolen so that we can talk with confidence about the vulnerability of the crypt.

By the way, this month Bitcoin cryptocurrency is already nine years old. The infrastructure of this cryptocurrency was conceived (as far as can be judged) as the maximum protected from outside interference. In general, this plan was a success - there are no cases of the bitcoin blockchain hacking yet, or nothing is known about them. But here the elements of the Bitcoin ecosystem, including users' computers or exchange markets, are vulnerable.

In an interview with Bloomberg, the lava fintech divisions of Autonomous Research LLP Lex, a research company, stated that the above $ 1.2 billion was fixed without taking into account the rate of cryptocurrency since the facts of hacking were discovered. That is, if all the stolen cryptocurrency could be recalculated in dollar terms now, the amount of real losses would be tens of billions of US dollars. Thus, for example, the rate of Bitcoin in just 2017 increased from $ 1 thousand to $ 18 thousand, having reached a level of $ 20 thousand a couple of weeks ago.
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“As far as can be judged, hacker attacks on cryptocurrencies bring in criminals about $ 200 million a year,” Sokolin said. He claims that about 14% of all bitcoins and ethers from the total volume mined to date have been in the hands of intruders who hacked, phished, and so on.

It goes without saying that, since the legal cryptocurrency market is not currently available, many transactions with digital currencies were conducted without tax deductions.

According to other experts, the blockchain itself, not only Bitcoin, but also other systems, is quite vulnerable to hacking. This largely depends on the size of the network and the number of miners that ensure the normal functioning of the entire ecosystem. Many blockchains are still small now, so for an attacker, if desired, there is no problem affecting the operation of such systems. Plus, there are bugs in the program code. Which lead to potential vulnerabilities.

“In any of the cases of using the blockchain there are problems. The more blockchains, the more difficult it is to ensure their security, ”said Matt Suich, head of cybersecurity services provider Comae Technologies, to the same Bloomberg agency. The expert believes that it is necessary to wait until the market settles, and there will be several leaders left so that other cryptocurrencies and their infrastructure will go into non-existence.

The hackers are followed by more and more frequent attempts to hack the cryptocurrency accounts of various exchanges and individual users. “In Russia there are more than 1 thousand exchange points of cryptocurrency for real money and back, you can order a plastic card for $ 12, which will work in any Russian ATM and by which you can change money from your bitcoin wallet to rubles. As a result, many large criminal groups have completely switched to the cryptoindustry, ” said Group-IB CEO Ilya Sachkov.

ICO is also a security issue. Only in 2017 as a result of the attacks, more than $ 300 million in equivalent was stolen. And this is only in the case of known attacks, how many of them remain outside the attention of experts in cryptocurrency security - the unknown. "Kaspersky Lab" last year recorded more than 2 thousand phishing attacks conducted by ICO.

The attention of hackers is now distributed between cryptocurrency accounts and banks. This year, information security experts expect an increase in the number of hacking attempts of both banking systems and cryptocurrency systems of various types. Digital currency is only beginning to gain momentum, the market is developing. This means that the most difficult things for this market are still ahead.