It’s ten years since the first official cyber-terrorist attack of a crypto exchange, and despite technological advances, most cryptocurrency entities have not yet been able to develop sufficiently reliable security systems to minimize security breaches on their platforms.
Cyber-terrorists are taking more advantage of security gaps every year. Beyond security breaches, there are various types of fraudulent schemes that have provided a way for bad actors to gain value from unsuspecting victims, such as exit scams and Ponzi schemes.
Crystal has compiled a full and detailed report of all security breaches, fraudulent activity, cyber-terrorism, and scams involving cryptocurrencies between the years 2011 and 2020. 113 security attacks and 23 fraudulent schemes have so far resulted in the theft of approximately $7.6 billion worth of crypto assets in total (that’s comparable to the GDP of Monaco).
The most common locations for exchange security breaches are the United States, the United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, and China. The largest crypto security breach thus far was the incident involving the Japanese exchange Coincheck in 2018.
The most notable type of cyber-terrorism utilizes a security breach in a crypto entity’s internal security systems, resulting in the illegal gaining of access to the crypto service hot wallets.
Over the next couple of months and years, as the number of blockchains keeps growing, and methods and technologies utilized by fraudsters continue to become more sophisticated and advanced, we can assume that the number of cyber-terrorist attacks will also continue to grow.
