2018-10-7 23:38 |
Recently, ICORating published a report on the various security mechanisms implemented by the top 100 digital asset trading platforms. Shockingly, the report established that a majority of the crypto exchange platforms have glaring shortcomings in their security frameworks. As a result, they are highly vulnerable to malicious attacks.
Reading theft of crypto assets, the report showed that hackers have stolen over $1 billion worth of digital currencies on 31 different platforms since 2010. The main reason for the success of these attacks was the deployment of poor security features by the compromised trading platforms. Earlier this year, the NEM blockchain lost an estimated $500 million worth of NEM tokens to hackers. Other exchanges that have suffered the same fate include Bithumb, Zaif and Coinrail.
The report ranked the most secure platforms by considering factors such as code errors, security of user accounts, domain security, and web security. It is also worth noting that the ranking included exchanges that average at least $1 million in trading volume on a daily basis. The top 10 were as follows:
Coinbase Pro Kraken BitMEX GOPAX CPDAX Bitlish BtcTurk Cobinhood Hotbit CoinutNotably, most of the listed crypto exchanges had several flaws in their security systems. These inadequacies were present throughout, even in the top-ranked exchange platforms. Although a majority had no code errors, most of the platforms had vulnerabilities in their user account security features.
The major issues concerning the security of user accounts were weak passwords, email verification and two-factor authentication. However, the deployment of two-factor authentication has been improving significantly of late.
Domain security is the biggest security concern across all of the listed platforms. This is particularly worrying, especially given that hackers usually target the domain when going after an exchange platform. As of now, only 2% of crypto exchanges have satisfactory domain security features.
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