But here’s the kicker: with a global wave of regulations going into effect later this year, laundering cryptos will be increasingly harder to do.

Cryptoinvest caught up with Dave Jevans, CEO of CipherTrace and co-chair of the Cryptocurrency Working Group at the APWG.org to find out what this means.

LIKE TAKING CANDY FROM A BABY

Of the total stolen funds in 2018, the majority came from exchanges and custodial services–more than $950 million. That was 3.6x more than in 2017–but why is this the case?

“Many exchanges have only been operational for two years or less. They have not invested in the security technologies and practices needed to safeguard IT systems, employees, and critical data,” Jevans explains.

“These cryptocurrency companies are at risk of having a simple file of cryptographic private keys stolen that can give the hackers $30M to $500M in profit. Yet these companies are immature in their security team funding, training and implementation.”

Jevans believes that the cryptocurrency space needs an enormous amount of infrastructure investment and education to prevent such attacks. This includes cold storage of private keys, strong anti-phishing measures including email authentication, and behavioral analytics and data sharing. “The APWG can help with this,” he says.