Connect with us

Global Banking and Finance Review is an online platform offering news, analysis, and opinion on the latest trends, developments, and innovations in the banking and finance industry worldwide. The platform covers a diverse range of topics, including banking, insurance, investment, wealth management, fintech, and regulatory issues. The website publishes news, press releases, opinion and advertorials on various financial organizations, products and services which are commissioned from various Companies, Organizations, PR agencies, Bloggers etc. These commissioned articles are commercial in nature. This is not to be considered as financial advice and should be considered only for information purposes. It does not reflect the views or opinion of our website and is not to be considered an endorsement or a recommendation. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information provided with respect to your individual or personal circumstances. Please seek Professional advice from a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. We link to various third-party websites, affiliate sales networks, and to our advertising partners websites. When you view or click on certain links available on our articles, our partners may compensate us for displaying the content to you or make a purchase or fill a form. This will not incur any additional charges to you. To make things simpler for you to identity or distinguish advertised or sponsored articles or links, you may consider all articles or links hosted on our site as a commercial article placement. We will not be responsible for any loss you may suffer as a result of any omission or inaccuracy on the website. .

Top Stories

McAfee Highlights Emerging Cybersecurity Risks Associated with Blockchain

‘Bring your own device’ linked with cybersecurity risk for six in 10 UK SMEs - a week before GDPR

McAfee report sounds industry alarm: Don’t start the Blockchain revolution without making security a top priority

Dubai, United Arab Emirates– McAfee, the device-to-cloud cybersecurity company, has released a report detailing the numerous cybersecurity risks associated with blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, and asserts the necessity of making cybersecurity a top priority as industry builds out the foundations for the widespread implementation of blockchain technologies.

Demand for blockchain technology continues to grow among some of the most established industries worldwide, including the government, finance, retail, health care, and automotive sectors. In fact, nearly every industry has invested in, acquired or implemented blockchain in some capacity.

Yet even as the blockchain technology market is expected to reach $9.6 billion by 2024, McAfee sees tremendous potential for cybersecurity risks that could threaten this revolutionary technology’s rapid growth and its quickly expanding pool of adopters. The company points to security events associated with cryptocurrencies, the area where blockchain technology has been most extensively implemented and used at large scale by millions of people.

Raj Samani, chief scientist at McAfee

Raj Samani, chief scientist at McAfee

According to the McAfee report, bad actors have aggressively sought to take advantage of the rapid adoption of cryptocurrencies and the early adopters who use them. McAfee sees this activity in four key attack vectors: phishing or fraud schemes, malware, implementation exploits, and technology vulnerabilities. Many attacks spanning these categories apply both old and new cybercrime techniques and have proven highly lucrative for cybercriminals.

The McAfee report details a 2017 cryptocurrency phishing scam in which a cybercriminal set up a fraudulent cryptocurrency “wallet” service. After collecting authentication information from the service’s users over the course of six months, the thief drained $4 million from unsuspecting customers’ accounts.

McAfee’s researchers provide examples of how cybercriminals using malware have been empowered by the proliferation of cryptocurrencies. The explosion of ransomware over the last few years has become operationally possible in large part due to the use of cryptocurrencies, which cloak cybercriminals’ identities associated with ransom payment transfers.

McAfee research illustrates the growing trends of malicious miners and cryptojacking, which create a vector for infection (via malware) and monetization (via mining). Recent McAfee Labs research in this cybercrime category found that total coin miner malware grew a stunning 629% in Q1 2018—from around 400,000 samples in Q4 2017 to more than 2.9 million samples in the first quarter of this year.

Finally, the cryptocurrency exchanges themselves have been attacked, suggesting that cybersecurity measures must be an important consideration in the development of blockchain technologies and the critical implementation and operational processes upon which they rely. Earlier this year, Coincheck, one of Japan’s most popular exchanges, lost $532 million, affecting 260,000 investors. McAfee’s researchers illustrate that there are detrimental costs to rapid implementation of blockchain technologies at the expense of proper cybersecurity measures.

“Like so many other new robust technologies, blockchain can have a revolutionary impact in solving very real business problems, but only so long as security does not fall victim to urgency in the rush to adopt the technology,” said Raj Samani, chief scientist at McAfee. “Given blockchain’s potential for creating value, and the tremendous enthusiasm to implement it, cybercriminals will seek every opportunity to strike at all available technical and human vulnerabilities in the emerging blockchain ecosystem. Governments, cybersecurity vendors, and businesses must be diligent in understanding the threats and minimizing the risks. Without adequate education for users and industry, secure implementation best practices, and strong technical security standards, the widespread adoption of blockchain by major industries and governments could end up costing billions of dollars and impacting millions of people.”

To download the entire report, visit www.mcafee.com/enterprise/en-us/assets/reports/rp-blockchain-security-risks.pdf

Global Banking & Finance Review

 

Why waste money on news and opinions when you can access them for free?

Take advantage of our newsletter subscription and stay informed on the go!


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Global Banking & Finance Review │ Banking │ Finance │ Technology. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Recent Post