We have responded to some of the largest cyber attacks against cryptocurrency exchanges.
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We leverage our experience to help cryptocurrency exchanges improve their security resilience.
Cryptographic security/cryptocurrencies
Improves resilience and defeats attacks.
The growth in popularity of cryptocurrencies and their typically high transaction volumes have made cryptocurrency exchanges very attractive targets for cybercriminals. Cryptocurrency exchange systems present opportunities for massive financial theft through fast, anonymous transactions. Global criminal groups, as well as nation-state attack actors, have taken notice and are continually targeting these exchange systems with increasingly sophisticated and tailored attacks. Over the past few years, we have responded to some of the largest cyberattacks against cryptocurrency exchange environments. We have gained a deep understanding of how crypto attacks play out and the tactics used by threat actors. We leverage our experience to help implement secure design principles, improve your security resilience, and defeat attacks.
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Our cryptographic security proposition consists of a set of services that have been tailored to address the unique security challenges and threat actor tactics faced by cryptocurrency exchanges. Our services include secure exchange architecture design, existing points of failure, component assessment, red teaming, code review, incident response, and threat hunting.
Proven benefits
- Ensure the continued security of hot wallet assets and secure large cold wallet assets.
- Eliminate single points of failure across your entire exchange architecture.
- Quickly contain and defeat cyber attacks.
Architecture design for secure cryptocurrency exchange systems
Designing a secure cryptocurrency exchange architecture helps organizations looking to build or transform their cryptocurrency exchange model, with Cybersecurity as a central consideration.
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Our team reviews key design elements such as network interconnectivity and controls, architecture and identity principles, governance and regulatory compliance management.
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The result is a custom architecture design, built to eliminate single points of failure, ensure dual control of key processes, and enforce/reinforce the principle of least privilege across the entire environment.
Improving security policies
Our experts’ extensive experience helping cryptocurrency exchanges detect, contain, and remediate serious security breaches has provided us with deep insight into the risks they face on a daily basis, and knowledge and mastery of the specific threat actor tactics likely to be used against them. We leverage this experience, coupled with a highly structured approach to the current cyber situation, to propose significant and rapid improvements, and accelerate the achievement of long-term strategic security goals.
Component evaluation
Crypto-exchanges system components are assessed against best security practices using practical adversary simulations. A white/grey security testing approach is applied to identify and test potential attacker entry points, as well as exploitable vulnerabilities and misconfigurations in selected components or, across the entire exchange ecosystem, including customer-facing and admin-facing infrastructure components.
Attack Simulation (Red Team)
Practical adversary simulations are applied against the Exchange system, replicating real threat actor tactics, techniques, and procedures, thus identifying attack vectors that are likely to be used by attackers to escalate privileges and move laterally to critical Exchange System components. Security system misconfigurations, design flaws, and exploitable vulnerabilities are identified, and appropriate mitigations are recommended.
Code Review
A security code review of cryptocurrencies (e.g. smart contracts) and cryptocurrency exchange components is performed using static code analysis, coupled with manual review by our experts. The security code review focuses on identifying vulnerabilities introduced through insecure coding practices, the use of vulnerable methods and libraries, as well as identifying complex application logic flaws.
Incident response
When responding to a cyber attack against a Cryptocurrency Exchange, speed and accuracy are critical. We leverage a parallel response, across multiple task forces, to expedite the containment and eradication of attackers. Our response methodology enables the identification of unique blockchain patterns associated with specific attackers, and this knowledge is also leveraged post-event to ensure that additional malicious activity and re-entry attempts are immediately detected and blocked. Our Incident Response Retainer (IRR) is available to provide a client-specific IR activation manual that saves valuable time when an incident occurs.
Threat hunting
We have responded to numerous attacks on cryptocurrency exchanges that were characterized by a stealthy and sustained impact to funds in exchange wallets. Detecting such attacks with standard monitoring tools poses a problem. When attacks are detected and prevented, attackers have the time and resources to regroup and try different tactics until they can successfully evade existing detections. To reverse this asymmetry between attackers and exchanges, we perform proactive, customized threat hunting to identify latent or stealthy threats in exchange environments and ensure their complete eradication.
