Japan: Crypto Network Hacks Doubled In 2018

2018 saw an almost 50 percent increase in the number of attacks on Internet of Things (IoT) devices and crypto networks in Japan, as reported by Asahi, March 7, 2019.

Intensified Effort

Probably the only thing that strikes more fear into the minds of the blockchain community than a bear market is a hack, several of which have taken place in 2019 already. Whilst more prudent security measures are being put in place to prevent them, the criminals behind them are relentless.

According to the report, the number of IoT devices and cryptocurrency networks that were hacked doubled in 2018; this is not particularly surprising as 2018 was the same year that the amount of money lost to hackers surpassed $1 Billion.

What the Numbers Say

The Japanese Police Agency saw 2,752.8 intrusions per sensor per day, which was a 45 percent increase from 2017. Another interesting detail is the fact that most of the attacks seemed to come from overseas.

Only 1.6 percent of attackers were located in Japan while 20.8 percent were located in Russia, 14.1 percent in China, 12.6 percent in the United States, 6 percent in the Netherlands and 5.1 percent in Ukraine.

When the figures for cryptocurrency networks and IoT devices are isolated, the number of daily intrusions per session per day falls to 1,702.8. However, this is still an increase from the 875.9 reported in 2017.

It is also clear that this isn’t part of a general increase in hacks across the board as other forms of attacks have stayed at a consistent number. The report writes:

“The number of intrusions of networks used for sending and receiving e-mail messages and browsing websites has remained at about the same level since 2016,”

This implies that hackers are deliberately targeting crypto networks and Internet of Things devices and paying less attention to email and browsing sites.

There could be a number of reasons for this. First, while the amount of money being made from email scams is still high, there is more money to be made from crypto is potentially higher and security measures being put in place to prevent website hacks have also gone up.

At the same time, Internet of Things and cryptocurrency are emerging industries and thus, there is less widely-circulated Information about them and this means that hacking into them will be easier.