In the first quarter of the year, robberies in the ecosystem caused losses similar to those registered during 2018, which were 1.7 billion dollars
At the beginning of 2019, two major thefts took place in the cryptographic world. The Binance exchange house suffered a hack, in early May, which caused losses of $ 40 million, equivalent to 7,000 bitcoins (BTC), whilst the Cryptopia exchange house, in New Zealand, seems not to be recovered yet. It lost NZD $ 23 million ($ 15 million) last January.
Among these two companies, Binance managed to recover its operations almost immediately thanks to updating its system, which allowed it to relaunch its platform on May 15th. A group of hackers eluded the security of the system and took advantage of a large-scale vulnerability, which allowed them to access some keys and other data.
The company took its measures, but the theft motivated it to seek more mechanisms of protection for cryptocurrencies and exchange houses users. In the first quarter of the year, these and other robberies in the ecosystem caused losses similar to those that were recorded during the year 2018, which were about $ 1.7 trillion.
For these reasons, the NEM Foundation and the cybersecurity company The Vault (which is from Singapore) came together to present an anti-fraud solution for the problem that has a negative impact on the reputation of digital assets and on the trust of some users.
As happened in the past with traditional money, since the creation of the first cryptocurrencies and their potential value, criminals in the network emerged, who intend to take over the passwords and other user data.
Watchful Procedure
The anti-fraud solution will use a consensus network to identify the addresses of fraudulent or malicious wallets. The tool will take advantage of the information generated in the cryptographic exchanges, the wallet owners, and the custodians that supply a combination of black, gray and white digital addresses to a decentralized database.
When making transfers of digital assets, which can be an exchange or purchase made with cryptocurrencies, the NEM-Vault solution verifies the supply and receipt addresses to verify that they are legitimate. In addition, to keep track, the addresses included in the black list can be ignored before sending or receiving a transaction.
According to Dannie Francis, the Vault’s CEO: “It’s a simple solution. But it is significant for consumers who want a guaranteed certainty when making withdrawals or paying someone. Their transaction will not be sent to the wrong address”.
What happens with transactions in blockchain platforms is that they are public. They do not reveal the data of the users who participate in it, but these users are identified with alphanumeric addresses. Therefore, the proposal of these two companies is that each user has a “background story”, without revealing their identity, but allowing it to be known if it is reliable or not.
Artificial Intelligence as an Impulse
The solution will be established in a private blockchain based on NEM. The Vault will take care of the development and NEM will provide marketing and commercial development resources.
“This is the first phase in the launch of The Vault’s security platform, a platform comprising a security consensus alliance driven by a fraud detection solution based on Artificial Intelligence (AI)”, said Jasmine Ng, CEO of NEM.
The NEM-Vault alternative would be of great help to users. The Vault platform is also driven by Artificial Intelligence, which monitors the digital assets of its clients, avoids fraudulent transactions and guarantees the validity of transactions. The solution is estimated to be ready in the next three months, and users are now waiting for it.
By María Rodríguez
