Fintech-startup BANKEX and Group-IB have made a cooperation agreement in cyber defense. Our new partners will help BANKEX at every stage of the token sale, minimizing outside interruptions, including preventing potential attacks by hackers. Together, the BANKEX team and Group-IB will work to minimize risks in our ecosystem.

The approach to security for IT-systems based on blockchain technology is an important subject of discussion in the crypto-community. Blockchain is considered resilient to outside attacks. Indeed, its modular structure serves to decrease any possibility of a successful hack. Furthermore, the blockchain itself is transparent and cannot be changed by an admin or anyone beyond the blockchain. Also significant is the public history of all transactions conducted on the blockchain. Any attempt to modify data will be immediately noted and will require a consensus between all participants/nodes, which further complicates an attempted hack.

While the blockchain-system itself is safe and transparent, companies developing their products on the platform may be more vulnerable. This year cybercriminals have managed to steal $225 million from investors wishing to invest into ICOs being conducted on the Ethereum platform. This is slightly less than all the money stolen by regular thieves during the entire 2015. ICO-hackers use phishing (using social engineering to solicit data) for their purposes, finding bugs in the system, hacking websites and invitations into financial pyramids. For instance, one of the most widely used methods is replacing the correct wallet address with a fake. Or creating a website or page extremely similar to the actual project. [1] BusinessInsider reports almost 10% of the money gathered during Initial Coin Offering (ICO) ended up in the hands of hackers. [2] According to CoinDesk, during the CoinDash ICO investors had over $7 million stolen from them. According to the calculations conducted by CoinDesk, over 2000 investors sent around 3700 ETH to a fake address. [3]

Cooperation between BANKEX and Group-IB, one of the leading international companies in the field of preventing and investigating cybercrimes, will become a guarantee of the safe conduction of all stages of the token sale. Group-IB’s system for monitoring and analysis of cyber threats (threat intelligence) is acknowledged to be among the best in the world according to such research agencies as Gartner (2015), Forrester (2017) and Markets&Markets (2017). Understanding the specifics of threats posed to the blockchain industry, our partner suggested efficient methods to safeguard the IT-infrastructure of BANKEX and prevent phishing attacks on our investors during token sale. [4]