Cryptocurrency & High Value Targets

12 minute read | Last updated 12-Jun-2018 |  Cybercrime, Security

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Bad Robot Transcript

Good morning, everyone. How’s it going today? I want to talk about in this episode. I want to talk about cryptocurrencies and high value targets that specifically not cryptocurrency for normal users before exchanges in applications because there’s been a few incidents over the last few months and they seem to be increasing in frequency where cryptocurrency exchanges or cryptocurrency on applications are under attack and duh.

Really? Right. I mean, these are high value targets. These are normally have set up quickly operational security may not be necessarily one of the most critical aspects of the operation and they’re literally holding digital assets that could be worth millions. So a couple weeks ago and app called Taylor had I think it was just north of a million.

I’m equivalent USD stolen in cryptocurrency and coinrail in South Korea. We got hit on for about a third of their assets again into the millions. So this is obviously happening because there’s money to be made and we know that cybercriminals very much follow the money. The reason why the money is to be had why it’s so simple I’m has to do with the sort of sudden Artemis nature of cryptocurrency.

So it’s completely Anonymous. But once you have stolen cryptocurrency asset, it’s far easier to move that asset then something like a credit card right credit cards have a limited lifetime as far as it goes for them. Once the credit card number has been stolen this or this countdown timer I have before it’s no longer useful where the person realizes their number has been stolen they were reported in this is why we see any Digital Underground album Into The Carter scenes that very much it sort of the freshness of a batch of credit cards credit card numbers determine their value when it comes to cryptocurrency things get a little more nuanced a little more.

Located because of the unknown legal nature of cryptocurrencies in most countries and all linked to a fantastic talk for the Canadian perspective given by Anna Manley about New Life of Canada. She give a fantastic example of walking through the legal nature of cryptocurrency at least within Canada and similar another jurisdictions of whether it’s a security whether it’s a property or whether it’s actually a currency and well that doesn’t seem like it’s important when it comes to the legal nature of these devices as well as crimes for stealing them and Prosecuting them and focus that law enforcement will put on the theft of these kinds of Assets Now The Challenge you get is because the cryptocurrencies are basically synonymous.

There’s you know, there are ways to track their usage that they’re far easier to move right so you can filter this out. Yes, you can trace it to the blockchain which is the advantage of you can kind of watch. Money flow. However, I’m figuring out what’s legitimate was illegitimate and tracing that back is very very difficult.

So for cybercriminals is an extremely attractive Target the challenges as well as because the crypto-currency market is so hot and resume using cryptocurrency not crypto crypto cryptography cryptocurrency is the digital assets again for me, but cryptocurrency is such a hot market right. Now. There are so many initial coin offerings are ico’s going on that which is people spitting up new coins out of there are so many exchanges that are helping people trade value between different coins and into a traditional currencies.

There is so much opportunity here, but that also means there’s so many chromosome which criminal opportunity because people are jumping at the chance to get on board with these various currencies. There is a feeling of haste there. Is this sort of rush to get out there and the challenge with Is that that means some basic operational Security in cyber security measures aren’t being taken.

And unfortunately when it comes to this scenario when it comes to cryptocurrency and as we know security is very much a balance between the value of the asset and how much you’re willing to pay to protect that asset will win the values are fluctuating the cryptocurrency marketing be very difficult to figure out how much you want to spend on security to offset the risks because you know a bit coin itself, you know, which is the most more stable of the cryptocurrencies wildly fluctuating.

So I buy double-digit percentage points on any given day and you know it when it’s at its most volatile. Let me see if he will ever get into this exchange when not exchange isn’t making that amount of money. So the challenge you get is a high-value Target and an unknown valuation of the assets it so, you know, they’re their potential But then also the sort of Market potential and it’s a recipe for disaster as we’ve seen time and time again, I’m in that cybercriminals are targeting these exchanges because they are vulnerable.

So the advice here is really over value your asset investing security and that goes for the exchanges that goes for applications. But especially for personal use of cryptocurrencies at the end of the day of cryptocurrency still just a digital file and there’s cryptographic material there. But that means it’s all existing in the digital ether.

That means it’s easy for cybercriminals to get hold of just like it is for any other digital file. So if you’re dealing in cryptocurrencies ensure that you’re practicing good operational security, you’re backing him up securely you strong past phrases and your cramping on your drives at rest your not exposing things and needlessly you’re not in a hosting our and saving all your cryptocurrency also on a server exposed to the internet.

I’m just kind of thing reduce your tax service in that goes doubly Tripoli, you know. 10 * so for cryptocurrencies because we’re not going to see any reduction in attacks against these assets. Because they are really high value and whether they currently have value it’s that speculative potential value that the attackers are putting against these cryptocurrencies that Defenders need to take into account.

So you need to invest even more in your security and operational security which includes not just products but people and process to ensure that your have a stable business even stable exchange rate of a stable part of the crypto-currency market interesting news today. I think I hit me up online at Mark NCAA in the comments down below or as always by email me at Mark n.

CA what do you think about cryptocurrency and security? And what do you think about the Privacy side the nature of cryptocurrency make it a more attractive Target for cybercriminals, you know cybercriminals are very active with a pull in Iran something perfect. What are your thoughts there? What are your experiences? Let me know.

What’s keep the discussion going. I hope you’re set up for a fantastic day. We’ll see you tomorrow. Good morning, everyone. How’s it going today? I want to talk about in this episode. I want to talk about cryptocurrencies and high value targets that specifically not cryptocurrency for normal users before exchanges in applications because there’s been a few incidents over the last few months and they seem to be increasing in frequency where cryptocurrency exchanges or cryptocurrency on applications are under attack and duh.

Really? Right. I mean, these are high value targets. These are normally have set up quickly operational security may not be necessarily one of the most critical aspects of the operation and they’re literally holding digital assets that could be worth millions. So a couple weeks ago and app called Taylor had I think it was just north of a million.

I’m equivalent USD stolen in cryptocurrency and coinrail in South Korea. We got hit on for about a third of their assets again into the millions. So this is obviously happening because there’s money to be made and we know that cybercriminals very much follow the money. The reason why the money is to be had why it’s so simple I’m has to do with the sort of sudden Artemis nature of cryptocurrency.

So it’s completely Anonymous. But once you have stolen cryptocurrency asset, it’s far easier to move that asset then something like a credit card right credit cards have a limited lifetime as far as it goes for them. Once the credit card number has been stolen this or this countdown timer I have before it’s no longer useful where the person realizes their number has been stolen they were reported in this is why we see any Digital Underground album Into The Carter scenes that very much it sort of the freshness of a batch of credit cards credit card numbers determine their value when it comes to cryptocurrency things get a little more nuanced a little more.

Located because of the unknown legal nature of cryptocurrencies in most countries and all linked to a fantastic talk for the Canadian perspective given by Anna Manley about New Life of Canada. She give a fantastic example of walking through the legal nature of cryptocurrency at least within Canada and similar another jurisdictions of whether it’s a security whether it’s a property or whether it’s actually a currency and well that doesn’t seem like it’s important when it comes to the legal nature of these devices as well as crimes for stealing them and Prosecuting them and focus that law enforcement will put on the theft of these kinds of Assets Now The Challenge you get is because the cryptocurrencies are basically synonymous.

There’s you know, there are ways to track their usage that they’re far easier to move right so you can filter this out. Yes, you can trace it to the blockchain which is the advantage of you can kind of watch. Money flow. However, I’m figuring out what’s legitimate was illegitimate and tracing that back is very very difficult.

So for cybercriminals is an extremely attractive Target the challenges as well as because the crypto-currency market is so hot and resume using cryptocurrency not crypto crypto cryptography cryptocurrency is the digital assets again for me, but cryptocurrency is such a hot market right. Now. There are so many initial coin offerings are ico’s going on that which is people spitting up new coins out of there are so many exchanges that are helping people trade value between different coins and into a traditional currencies.

There is so much opportunity here, but that also means there’s so many chromosome which criminal opportunity because people are jumping at the chance to get on board with these various currencies. There is a feeling of haste there. Is this sort of rush to get out there and the challenge with Is that that means some basic operational Security in cyber security measures aren’t being taken.

And unfortunately when it comes to this scenario when it comes to cryptocurrency and as we know security is very much a balance between the value of the asset and how much you’re willing to pay to protect that asset will win the values are fluctuating the cryptocurrency marketing be very difficult to figure out how much you want to spend on security to offset the risks because you know a bit coin itself, you know, which is the most more stable of the cryptocurrencies wildly fluctuating.

So I buy double-digit percentage points on any given day and you know it when it’s at its most volatile. Let me see if he will ever get into this exchange when not exchange isn’t making that amount of money. So the challenge you get is a high-value Target and an unknown valuation of the assets it so, you know, they’re their potential But then also the sort of Market potential and it’s a recipe for disaster as we’ve seen time and time again, I’m in that cybercriminals are targeting these exchanges because they are vulnerable.

So the advice here is really over value your asset investing security and that goes for the exchanges that goes for applications. But especially for personal use of cryptocurrencies at the end of the day of cryptocurrency still just a digital file and there’s cryptographic material there. But that means it’s all existing in the digital ether.

That means it’s easy for cybercriminals to get hold of just like it is for any other digital file. So if you’re dealing in cryptocurrencies ensure that you’re practicing good operational security, you’re backing him up securely you strong past phrases and your cramping on your drives at rest your not exposing things and needlessly you’re not in a hosting our and saving all your cryptocurrency also on a server exposed to the internet.

I’m just kind of thing reduce your tax service in that goes doubly Tripoli, you know. 10 * so for cryptocurrencies because we’re not going to see any reduction in attacks against these assets. Because they are really high value and whether they currently have value it’s that speculative potential value that the attackers are putting against these cryptocurrencies that Defenders need to take into account.

So you need to invest even more in your security and operational security which includes not just products but people and process to ensure that your have a stable business even stable exchange rate of a stable part of the crypto-currency market interesting news today. I think I hit me up online at Mark NCAA in the comments down below or as always by email me at Mark n.

CA what do you think about cryptocurrency and security? And what do you think about the Privacy side the nature of cryptocurrency make it a more attractive Target for cybercriminals, you know cybercriminals are very active with a pull in Iran something perfect. What are your thoughts there? What are your experiences? Let me know.

What’s keep the discussion going. I hope you’re set up for a fantastic day. We’ll see you tomorrow.