Aaron Mulgrew by Aaron Mulgrew | | News & Events

The month of August has been an interesting month for Cryptocurrency. With mainstream tokens such as Bitcoin and Ethereum surging back towards all-time highs for both.

We begin with Vast Bank offering direct purchases of cryptocurrencies direct from customers bank accounts [1]. Vast are currently offering direct purchases on eight cryptocurrencies. This is a significant step in the right direction in maximising the convenience and ability to buy cryptocurrency, directly from a well known and reputable bank. Vast Bank is now the first chartered bank in the U.S to offer the ability to buy and sell cryptocurrency directly from an everyday account.

Poly Network, which was hacked in early august, is offering the Hacker a $500K reward for returning nearly all $600M originally stolen from the platform. The attacker(s) insisted that they did it ‘for fun’ and that they were always going to return the funds. Senior commentators believe that once the attack took place, there would have been so much scrutiny on the wallet that the attacker would have either had to return the funds or face a lengthy criminal investigation. [2]

Bilaxy is the latest in a long line of exchange compromises where the attacker has attacked the hot wallets for storing customer private keys on their platform. The attacker is believed to have transferred 295 ERC-20 token, worth around $21 million (as of 31st August) to a single wallet [3]. This further highlights the need for high assurance security solutions when connecting customer wallets to the outside world.

 

The US Air Force has made clear that it will be prioritizing blockchain based solutions to the age-old problem of supply side security issues. The USAF have partnered with Constellation – who have developed a end-to-end data security solution using concepts that are used within Blockchain and distributed data management [4] to develop a new data security solution that can be rolled out to the DoD’s commercial partners. This is an interesting development as traditional communication interfaces to commercial partners have typically been seen as an achilles heel within federal circles [5].

As the cryptocurrency market matures, so does the need for better security solutions. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the need to protect crypto wallets from cybercriminals. Learn more about 'Protecting Crypto Assets' by downloading the technical report on threat protection for cryptocurrency exchange applications, custodians and networks.


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