Digital Assets Hacks Can Be Avoided with Solid Secuity Teams: Polygon CSO

Mudit Gupta, the Chief Security Officer (CSO) of Polygon blockchain, has suggested all blockchain firms to invest on recruiting traditional security teams in order to prevent hack attacks. Recently, data gathered by the blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis shows that in 2022, so far, criminals have stolen $1.7 billion (roughly Rs. 13,200 crore) in digital assets, with Decentralised Finance (DeFi) protocols accounting for 97 percent of the total via hack attacks.

In an interview with CoinTelegraph, Gupta highlighted that all the recent hacks in the crypto sector can be linked to vulnerabilities existing in the Web2 security.

These include loopholes in the private key management and phishing attacks to gain login access to wallets, among other tactics.

“I've been pushing at least all of the major companies to get a dedicated security person who actually knows that key management is important. There should be proper audit trail logging and proper risk management around these things. But as we've seen these crypto companies just ignored all of it,” CoinTelegraph quoted Gupta as saying.

Polygon, the energy-efficient blockchain, has a dedicated team of ten security experts working in the company. Gupta has urged other Web3 firms to also take the same approach.

So far in this year, Curve Finance, Solana Wallets, Premint NFT registration platform, Beanstalk stablecoin protocol, and Axie Infinity's Ronin Bridge have suffered breaches amounting to millions of dollars.

To prevent such attacks in the future, Gupta has emphasised on the importance of private key management.

While security management firms work on their security management, crypto research firms like PeckShield and Chainalysis have proven to be prompt in tracking hack attacks in the sector.

Earlier in June, Chainalysis launched a 24-hour hotline. Every distressed victim who reaches out for help will be addressed by a team of researchers who will try to trace the lost or stolen crypto funds in case of a hack attack. Local authorities could also be involved in more serious cases.