“Work keys’ attacks are rising against cryptocurrencies. What to know is national

A fairy tale about the main headline about the Italian man who said he was stolen and tortured weeks inside the high -class Townhouse of Manhattan, who are looking for his bitcoin, emphasizes the dark corner cryptocurrency World: The threat of violence from thieves looking for digital assets.

The intended attempt of robbery is known as an “attack on a wrench”. This name is a comic book promoted on the Internet that has been bullied on how easy it can be canceled by clicking someone with a wrench until they give up passwords.

The attacks of wrench are increasing partly due to the transition of cryptocurrency to basic finances, said Phil Aris from the TRM Labs cryptocurrency firm in a recent blog post.

“Criminal groups that already use violence to achieve their goals are always likely to migrate to cryptocurrency,” Aris said.

Some of the key characteristics of cryptocurrency help to explain why wealthy people who have many digital assets can be ripe targets for such attacks.

Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, offer merchants full control over their funds without the need for a bank or the government’s permission to buy, sell or hold it. The compromise is that if the funds are lost or stolen, there can be no way to return them.

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Independence is a key ethos of cryptocurrencies. Provision and control of private keys that are similar to passwords used to access their cryptocurrencies are seen as a saxanct among many in the cryptocurrency community. A popular motto is “not your keys, not your coins.”

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Blockchain operations, the technology that nourishes cryptocurrencies, is constant. And unlike cash, jewelry, gold or other values, thieves do not need to wear the stolen cryptocurrency. With several clicks, a huge amount of wealth can be transferred from one address to another.

In the case of New -York, where two people are leaving, many details have not yet come out, including the value of the bitcoin that the victim possesses.

The theft of cryptocurrency is almost as old as the cryptocurrency itself, but it is usually done by breaking. It is believed that only North Korea has stolen a billion dollars in recent years.

In response to the threat of hacking, owners of a large number of cryptocurrencies often try to keep their private keys from the Internet and are stored in what they are called “cold wallets”. Used properly, such wallets can win even the most complex and decisive hackers.

But they cannot defeat the thieves who make the victim give up their password to access their wallets and move money.

The case in New York is the last in the line of loud attacks of wrench. Several took place in France, where thieves cut off the finger of the head of cryptocurrency.

Experts offer several ways to mitigate the threats of wrench attacks, including the use of wallets that require several approval before any transaction.

Perhaps the most common way when cryptocurrency people are trying to prevent the wrench keys are trying to remain anonymous. The use of surnames and cartoons in social networks is widespread in the cryptocurrency community, even among the best managers of popular companies.

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