Cryptocurrencies are around us since 2009, when a mysterious developer, known as Satoshi Nakamoto, created bitcoin. Since then, lots has changed about virtual money. In the beginning, only a handful of well-informed people knew about it. After the first five years, BTC becomes popular, and lots of other cryptocurrencies emerged.
Full worldwide popularity happened in 2017 when BTC reached 20.000 USD per coin. Many people became rich by smart investment, or by listening to experts like profit-secret.com where you can check out all the main trends and get some very good advice on how to invest and trade on the stock market. Maybe even buy some cryptocurrency. One of the first things and probably most important in the mind of cryptocurrencies developers is the absence of limitations. No government in the World can control the crypto market, and that is what drives people to invest. Also, there is a large profit if you play your cards right. Sadly, there is the other side of the medal. When there is no government control, there is no government security, and where is money, there are persons who will try to steal it.
Since their appearance, all virtual currencies developers are trying to improve security as much as possible, which is necessary to retain investors’ trust. On the other side, scammers are creating all sorts of new ways to steal from people’s virtual wallets, so there are still so many security threats and concerns. What can we expect on this topic in 2024?
1. The first one is always human error
Please, watch out from malware, spyware, ransomware, and all other viruses. When you keep your data and virtual wallet on your personal computer, it is of utmost importance not to visit shady websites and download unverified content. Although it is pretty basic to mention this when talking about security risks, it is the easiest way to lose your money, and there is no one other to blame except yourself.
When talking about human errors, it is significant not to become forgetful. Even though famous singer 50 Cent recently discovered that he is 8 million dollars reacher, because he accepted bitcoins for his music, it is highly unlikely this will happen to anyone who forgets about their E-money. Most likely, you will end up without your money, so never forget your passwords, check your data before formatting, create backup copies, and protect your funds.
2. Phishing
It is not a human error, its a crime. Investors have often discovered various attempts at identity theft via the internet. People who falsely present themselves as service providers try to scam investors to reveal personal information, special passwords or private keys by typing them on a fake website, linking them to a social network or via messages. Fake websites and messages from people who want to illegally access personal data are very similar to websites of authentic service providers, which often makes it very difficult to notice.
3. Identity theft
Losing your money without even making any mistake became a possibility with the constant development of technology. So-called deepfake technology where it is possible to use some other person’s face or voice already made it possible for cybercriminals to steal 243.000 USD from a single company last year.
4. Blockchain security
Blockchain is new when compared to traditional banking, but it is so far advanced that it is much more secure, but there are some exceptions. There were many breaches, data leaks, and losses due to vulnerabilities yet to be secured by developers. In addition to not being secure enough, every security breach makes the headlines, and some people will lose confidence when they read something like that.
5. Keep your communication safe
The World uses apps for communication, but how secure are those? With more than a billion users of these apps, there is a constant danger of hacks and other security vulnerabilities. It is important to keep your privacy safe, so never share your info like E-mail via unsecured apps.
6. No more democratic market
Crypto utopist developers created virtual currencies to prevent government and large companies to control the market, but something similar happened to the crypto market because of the crypto whales. These are the people and companies who control vast amounts of any virtual coins, and with that capitalization, they can control the market and create ups and downs for their own benefits. This imbalance can endanger everyone’s security in crypto trading.
7. Cryptojacking
Unwilling crypto mining is still a great threat because of the rising price of crypto assets. More than 3.000 servers were down because of malware known as “Vollgar” That kind of security threats can infect thousands of servers with weak protection. Crypto mining does not steal money or data from infected computers, phones, or servers. However, they significantly influence the performance of the devices, which become unwilling miners for the profit of the perpetrator.
8. Internal communications are often the easiest possible target for data leaks
End-to-end encryption can not protect the metadata, which can direct to leakage of relevant sensitive information. In blockchain-based systems, the metadata used for communications is scattered in the distributed ledger and cannot be at one centralized point. But that is not the same for internal communication, so this is the topic, about which many investors express concerns.
9. Ransomware
Although there is a slight decline in ransomware cases in the last year, it is still the main security concern for all crypto holders. This decline happened because most of the cybercriminals who use extortion decided to attack big companies and are trying to steal more assets, instead of mass-attacks in the past. Because of the anonymous ownership, Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are the main currency for those extortions, and that undermines their credibility.
There are many security risks and concerns regarding virtual money, and those won’t disappear soon, but many positives they provide almost always outnumber the risks. Hackers are finding new ways to steal money, but developers are also finding new ways to help people to stay clear of fraud. Most of those concerns can be avoidable by checking everything and following the basic rules with virtual money.
Kim Marks 