Luno, Tokenize pledge tight security as hackers hit operators abroad
In less than 2 weeks last month, almost RM2.9b worth of cryptocurrency assets were stolen by hackers from 2 leading exchanges abroad
by AFIQ AZIZ / Pic by TMR FILE PIX
THE hacking of digital asset exchanges (DAXs) abroad has put some fear in digital currency investors here their investments on local DAXs may equally be vulnerable to hackers if there are no comprehensive security measures in place.
In less than two weeks last month, almost US$700 million (RM2.9 billion) worth of cryptocurrency assets were stolen by hackers from two leading exchanges abroad.
China-based Poly Network, a smart contract-driven platform that facilitates transactions between various platforms, had US$600 million worth of crypto money stolen, before the hacker, or hackers, returned most of the stolen funds, saying the heist was just “for fun”. It was dubbed as the biggest cryptocurrency theft ever.
Then, the Japanese cryptocurrency exchange known as Liquid was hit in a cyberattack by hackers who made off with a reported US$97 million worth of digital coins.
Liquid has since stated some of its digital currency wallets had been “compromised”, and hackers had transferred the assets to four different wallets.
While the cryptocurrency market in Malaysia is far smaller compared to peers abroad, it is growing with the Securities Commission licensing four DAXs.
Luno’s infrastructure is also hosted on Amazon Web Services which o ers a secure environment for its services, Tang says
The leading DAX, Luno Malaysia Sdn Bhd, reported almost US$1 billion (RM4.2 billion) in total transactions as of June compared to US$300 million (RM1.23 billion) for the whole of 2020.
It currently stores more than RM1 billion of digital assets including bitcoin, ethereum, ripple and litecoin with 300,000 account holders.
In an email to The Malaysian Reserve (TMR), Luno Malaysia country manager Aaron Tang stated DAX keeps most of its customers’ private keys in physical bank vaults inside safety deposit boxes, called “deep freeze” storage to maximise the safety of its customer’s cryptocurrencies.
“Deep-freeze keys are ‘multi-sig’ keys, meaning multiple keys must always be present to authorise a…