Polygon’s Chief Security Officer Urges Web3 Firms to Invest in Security Experts Amid Hack Spree

In 2022 so far, criminals have stolen $1.7 billion (roughly Rs. 13,210 crore) in digital assets.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Richa Sharma | Updated: 9 September 2022 12:46 IST

Polygon’s Chief Security Officer Urges Web3 Firms to Invest in Security Experts Amid Hack Spree

Photo Credit: Bloomberg

Hacking Decentralised Finance (DeFi) protocols accounted for 97 percent of crypto hacks

Highlights

Polygon has a dedicated security team
Polygon has a ten-person team for overseeing security
Gupta has asked all Web3 firms to appoint similar dedicated teams

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.

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“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.

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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.

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, Polygon, CSO, Hack Attacks, Mudit Gupta

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More