Hello friends in steemit, hope we are feeling well. Top of the day to everyone. I'm here to participate in week5 homework given by Cryptoprofessor_@Gbenga.

HOMEWORK WEEK5 TASK
Make a Post about a Security problem with Cryptocurrency and Share a personal experience if possible.

source

Introduction

Blockchain Security is an integral part of the Cryptocurrency protocols that guarantees the confidence and Safety of crypto assets. Blockchain is basically a computer technology that involves and allows distributed data storage, P2P transmission, consensus mechanism and encryption algorithms.

Blockchain is an essential part in any decentralized database/platform that associates different series of blocks using cryptographic methods. Each block here is seen to contain information and data (containing network transaction) which is used to verify and validate information, hence generate a new block.

With all this fantastic technology and chains of processing, verifying and validating transactions, this Blockchain can also be harmful to ones business due to some high-tech Security issues. There are several forms of Blockchain Security problem witnessed over past and recent times but would be talking about EXCHANGE HACKS

EXCHANGE HACKS

Cryptocurrency Exchanges has continued to be in the frontline of been attacked and has recorded high attacks from hackers. These DEXs are seen to have large crypto assets without a measurable Security protection to guarantee safety at all platforms. Yes, they are seen as cryptocurrency Exchanges platforms which should be decentralized in all its activities but they are largely centralised innately.

When Cryptocurrency Exchanges are attacked, its effect is usually damaging since thousands of account users are affected because of stored assets in their Exchanges.
Cryptocurrency Exchanges lost a whopping $900 million between the year 2018 to 2019 due to blockchain security issue.
Major strategy from hackers are seen in implanting phishers and malwares on exchange computers and launch attack when transactions are initiated. Most times this Hackers do not care about the size of the exchange rather they just care about the value of account size.

Since cryptoexchanges store digital and Fiat in their platforms, this makes it much more simpler for hackers to have unlimited access to this assets. There was a scenario where some hackers obtained a list of employees and sent in a phishing emails with malicious payloads after studying their interest and social media status. They were able to penetrate the internal architecture were cryptowallets were stored and it's mechanism of storage.

Although this process took them time to pull through since they were expected to monitor the internal mechanism; how the accountants and director relates and other financial obligations. When the automatic system is set up to send cryptocurrency, this hackers already in with operating rights, deviates this command and start sending cryptocurrency to themselves.
A recent attack on the Binance exchange is believed to have followed this scenario.

HOW TO STAY PROTECTED IN AN EXCHANGE

For every business minded, there's a simple strategy to put in place before bringing in other measures.
You're to make that the cost of attacks exceeds the cost of expected gain and rate of successful hack.

Other strategy may include:

• Adequate training of staff in cyberliteracy
• Use a security solution to protect against soft-spots. Security solutions that would guard against nodes and also have the capacity to detect unusual firewalls in the system.
• Order a pentest ; this would enable an expert to navigate round your System and probably detect soft spots to attack.

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE

I don't really have any direct personal experience on issues of hack or loss of assets due to any circumstances since I'm just a newbie in the crypto-community.
But I do have a scenario that happened to two friends who's devices where stolen and the other crashed. All backed up keys and passwords were lost since they didn't have a hard copy of these keys. It was an unfortunate event but It was not a major loss since they were still new in the platform and account value was still small to let go.
Lessons learnt here was, we all immediately made a hard copies of the keys and kept in a more secured place.

CONCLUSION
Decentralized Exchanges are reliable tools for regular traders who trade more frequently because of its direct access from cryptowallets. For irregular nor inactive readers, It is more safer to store assets in a hardware or paper wallets with minimal online interface to keep away hackers from direct hit.

References used
Source 1
Source 2

@gbenga this is my entry for week-5 homework.

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