As Exchanges Beef Up Security Measures, Hackers Get More Sophisticated
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This blog is an excerpt from the Chainalysis 2020 Crypto Crime Report. Click here to download the full document!
2019 saw more cryptocurrency hacks than any other year. But of the 11 attacks that occurred this year, none of them came close to matching the scale of major heists such as last year’s $534 million Coincheck hack, or the $473 million Mt. Gox hack in 2014. Therefore, the total amount stolen from exchanges dropped sharply to $283 million worth of cryptocurrency despite the increased number of attacks.
Allow us to explain how we arrived at our final count of 2019 exchange attacks, given that other sources in the media and elsewhere may report different numbers:
- We counted both hacks involving exploitation of technical vulnerabilities and attacks conducted through social engineering or other forms of deception. (A note on terminology: All hacks are attacks, but not all attacks are hacks. Hacks refer specifically …
2019 saw more cryptocurrency hacks than any other year. But of the 11 attacks that occurred this year, none of them came close to matching the scale of major heists such as last year’s $534 million Coincheck hack, or the $473 million Mt. Gox hack in 2014. Therefore, the total amount stolen from exchanges dropped sharply to $283 million worth of cryptocurrency despite the increased number of attacks.
Allow us to explain how we arrived at our final count of 2019 exchange attacks, given that other sources in the media and elsewhere may report different numbers:
- We counted both hacks involving exploitation of technical vulnerabilities and attacks conducted through social engineering or other forms of deception. (A note on terminology: All hacks are attacks, but not all attacks are hacks. Hacks refer specifically …