Exchange Hacks Highlight Need for Better Consumer Habits

[ZionRTZ]

The Singapore-based exchange, DragonEx, recently revealed that it was hacked for an undisclosed amount, which also follows rumors that Coinbene was also compromised.

DragonEx announced the hack via its Telegram channel saying their “users’ funds and Platform crypto assets were transferred and stolen”. Interestingly, DragonEx took the platform offline earlier in the day claiming that it was upgrading its systems and even provided an update later in the day that they were “still working on system maintenance”, but they finally admitted that they had been hacked. After admitting the hack, they also said that “part of the assets were retrieved back, and they will do their best to retrieve back the rest of stolen assets” and are working with authorities from Estonia, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong.

“We’re assisting policemen to do investigation. All platform services will be closed and the accurate assets loss recovery situation will be announced in a week. For the loss caused to our users, DragonEx will take the responsibility no matter what.”

Also recently, Coinbene announced that it was undergoing maintenance, but users are skeptical and afraid that the exchange has been hacked, as well, and is trying the same strategy as DragonEx to mitigate immediate reactions. Driving the fear is the disabling of withdrawals an deposits along with twitter users citing abnormal blockchain activity leaving the site’s wallets.

“In order to enhance the user experience, CoinBene upgraded the platform wallet on March 26, 2019. During maintenance, it will affect related operations such as deposit and withdraw, trading will not be affected.”

Responsible consumer money management
Cryptocurrency is very secure by itself on the blockchain since it requires a 51% attack to be compromised, which is typically both expensive and counter to most economic incentives. However, these hacks occur mostly due to user error when they put their cryptocurrency on exchanges since that means entrusting the exchange with their private keys. The exchange will then improperly protect their private keys and thus make the money more vulnerable to being stolen.

Cryptocurrency provides a lot of power to consumers through financial and monetary independence, but that power also requires responsibility since every consumers controls access to their fund via their private keys and if lost or stolen, there is a very limited number of ways to retrieve said money. Cryptocurrency exchanges have become honeypots for hackers and highlight the inexperience of consumers when it comes to knowledge around cryptocurrency. It also highlights the need for decentralized and peer-to-peer exchanges, such as DynX, Bisq, Komodo, DashNearby, Dashous, and Wall of Coins to mitigate the creation of these honeypots.



SOURCE: https://dashnews.org/exchange-hacks-highlight-need-for-better-consumer-habits/