Portland: The cyber criminals are now hacking digital currencies and the software developed to track them. The computer security firms have also got their lucrative business in terms of the digital currencies.
According to the news reported in Livemint, it is said that, in less than a decade over $1.2 billion worth of digital currencies have been stolen by hackers.
Lex Sokolin, global director of fintech strategy at Autonomous Research LLP said that “It looks like crypto hacking is a $200 million annual revenue industry.”
As more and more companies are now considering of investing into cryptocurrencies, there are also few threats associated with it, in terms of security of the transactions.
Matt Suiche, who runs the blockchain security company Comae Technologies, said that blockchains have become more vulnerable than softwares as there are bugs associated, and they are thousands in number.
He further said that “Each implementation is going to have its own problems, the more implementations, the harder it is to cover all of them.”
According to Andras Cser, an analyst at Forrester Research, said that “While hacking a blockchain may be harder than breaking into a retailer’s database, the rewards are greater. You have much more information you can steal.”
Richard Ma, co-founder of Quantstamp, a company backed by venture-capital firm Y Combinator Inc. says that “When you have a bug, you release a patch. With a smart contract, you deploy it to the network, and it’s not possible to ever change it again.”
The hackings related to crypto currencies like bitcoins have costed companies and governments nearly $11.3 billion through lost potential tax revenue from coin sales and illegitimate transactions.