he chief security officer of Coinbase has sought to reassure customers over the firm’s safety standards after the crypto trading exchange faced a lawsuit over alleged security issues.
The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in a US federal court in Georgia, claims the company “does not properly employ standard practices to keep consumers’ accounts secure” and “fails to preserve and safeguard customer assets”.
But Coinbase chief security officer Philip Martin told the Standard: “We see threats of all shapes and sizes …we see attacks on protocols, we see hackers looking at smart contract vulnerabilities and looking for ways to exploit those. We’ve built a whole organisation within my team…to ensure we are ahead of the curve.”
“Security is not a one size fits all proposition, it requires participation from both sides and customisation to match the security posture of an account to the security risk of a given consumer.”
A record £1.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency has been stolen in hacks of services in the year to July 2022 as organised online criminals and nefarious state actors exploit vulnerabilities in decentralised finance.
The sums are around 60% higher than for the same period a year ago, according to data from blockchain platform Chainalysis, and stand in stark contrast to overall criminal activity online, which is down 15%, and online scam revenue, which fell 65%.
A Coinbase spokesperson said: “We can’t comment on specific ongoing…
