Nine ways cryptos are beefing up security

The bitcoin theft, from Taiwan-based Binance, was valued at around $40 million and part of a “large-scale security breach”, in which hackers used “a variety of techniques, including phishing, viruses and other attacks”, chief executive Changpeng Zhao said in a statement at the time. While Binance covered the bitcoins lost through its own emergency fund, put aside in case of such a breach, the incident shone a spotlight once again on security standards of even the most popular exchanges. The Binance hack took the all-time total stolen from cryptocurrency exchanges past the $1.35-billion mark, according to research by The Block consultancy. Approximately 59 per cent of this total was taken in 2018 alone. Jonny Emmanuel, partner at law firm Bird & Bird, explains that targets have moved beyond the big exchanges, with smaller exchanges now being targeted.