FEATURE
Vitaly Mzokov, Head of Verification, at
Kaspersky, said: “Despite there being a
lot of companies driving development of
Blockchain-based products, including
cryptocurrencies and tokens, many
people worry about investing in the
crypto economy as it is swarmed
with fraudsters and cybercriminals.
Blockchain services are not always
secure enough to be worth investing
into. We’ve been growing our expertise
in this field and already conducted
several projects for ICOs.
“We see a growing demand for
cybersecurity from Blockchain startups
that are looking for both protection from
cyberthreats and additional evidence
that they can be trusted by investors.
That’s what we’re helping them to
achieve with our new offering.”
Kaspersky is expanding its network of
partners with established Blockchain
and crypto businesses who are selling
the services to industry customers.
We spoke to Riaan Badenhorst, General
Manager at Kaspersky Africa, to find
out more about Blockchain and crypto
in cybersecurity.
What are some of the
cybersecurity concerns for
those working in the Blockchain
and crypto industry?
The Blockchain industry and
cryptocurrency market has been rapidly
developing and now constitutes a
significant share of the global economy.
The total market capitalisation of digital
currency is estimated to be US$362
billion and, according to PwC, more
than US$19.7 billion was collected
through ICOs in 2018. Even though
Blockchain was initially seen as a secure
technology, there are now various
threats and cybersecurity risks around
the crypto economy. In the last two
years, we have become aware of the
following threats:
• Phishing copies of a popular
ICO website
• Targeted attacks on crypto
exchange companies
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• Hardware intended to steal
cryptocurrency
• Other attack vectors
What role is Blockchain and
cryptocurrency playing in the
cybersecurity space in general?
Innovative companies have been
exploring the advantages of Blockchain
tech in solving the pressing security
issues like how to detect and mitigate
cyberattacks in real time, make
passwords obsolete and secure chats.
The Blockchain addresses the
fundamental flaws of security by
taking away the human factor from the
equation, which is usually the weakest
link; however, attackers are infecting
devices not to compromise data, but
rather to use their computational
resources for cryptocurrency mining.
That is not to say data-focused malware
will stop. Instead, cryptocurrencies
present a new channel for attack. If
one assumes that data is safe, then
the chances are good that it will be
compromised sooner rather than later.
Why was there a need to
offer these new packages
to the industry?
To help Blockchain and crypto
businesses overcome these challenges,
Kaspersky developed these service
offerings which consider the specifics of
how such business models work and the
lifecycle of token offerings and crypto
exchanges. The offerings will:
The Blockchain
industry and
cryptocurrency
market has been
rapidly developing
and now constitutes
a significant share of
the global economy.
• Identify flaws and undeclared
features, as well as find
discrepancies between stated in
the supporting documentations and
smart-contract business logic
• Help a startup team analyse the state
of security of applications (be it a
decentralised or a traditional one)
developed by a startup
And in addition to this, the high level
of protection for crypto exchanges,
Kaspersky offers a tailored service
pack to:
• Help owners of crypto exchanges
detect critical bugs and address
them before they cause damage
• Help a crypto exchange identify
weak spots in their systems and to
ensure that hackers won’t penetrate
them easily
• Detect attempts from criminals to get
access to user wallets. u
Issue 15
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