why each month is Cybersecurity Consciousness Month at Kraken « Kraken Weblog

By Nick Percoco, Kraken Chief Safety Officer

Cybersecurity can’t be an afterthought for a crypto platform. At Kraken, we contemplate securing our purchasers’ private info and cryptoassets to be our highest precedence, so we place security above everything. Following October’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we’d wish to inform you extra about our ongoing method to safeguarding your private information and cryptoassets.  

Kraken was based with a security-first mindset in 2011. Our Co-Founders witnessed the Mt. Gox exploit firsthand, as purchasers misplaced entry to funds they’d entrusted to that platform. It was a catastrophe for 1000’s of consumers and the alternate itself.

We proceed to attempt to be a safe buying and selling platform the place purchasers can entry the cryptoasset ecosystem and make investments with confidence. For us, safety is a lifestyle. 

Safety is a part of our DNA

Safety is on the core of Kraken’s world operation. Over our 12-year historical past, we now have persistently invested in our cybersecurity infrastructure, employed a few of the brightest expertise within the info-sec group and spent numerous hours coaching all of our groups to be “productively paranoid.” 

However safety is not only about protecting the crypto we maintain on behalf of our purchasers secure. The private figuring out info we preserve about our purchasers is simply as helpful to malicious actors.

We intention to make use of the most recent requirements to encrypt all delicate account info at each the system and information degree. This implies your figuring out info is all the time hidden behind a strong layer of safety. After we encrypt your info, we observe a sturdy set of safety procedures and controls that earned us ISO 27001 and SOC 2 certifications.

Why safety is a two-way course of

We additionally acknowledge that our security-first method is simplest when purchasers perceive the significance of remaining vigilant as they navigate the more and more digital world we stay in. 

As a result of cybercriminals are continuously evolving their practices to extract private info from their victims, we now have invested important sources to enhance data of fine safety practices for everybody.

For instance, we entered a partnership with standard American scam-baiter KitBoga to creatively elevate consciousness of the commonest crypto-related scams. We had been additionally acknowledged by the CSO 50 awards for our ongoing efforts to scale back the prevalence of e-mail phishing assaults.  

The position of two issue authentication (2FA) in our security-first method

Whereas Kraken is constantly striving to guard our shopper’s belongings and private information, we acknowledge the significance of purchasers implementing 2FA to assist us in our efforts to take care of the very best degree of operational safety.

2FA acts as an important second layer of protection that additional protects your on-line life. We evaluate 2FA to having a deadbolt on the entrance door of your own home. Sure, one lock is likely to be ample to maintain intruders out, however having a secondary lock that requires a distinct key’s a strong improve that additional safeguards your own home. 

As a result of this secondary layer of safety is so very important, we consider everybody ought to allow 2FA on all of the accounts and functions they will – particularly their private e-mail.

Our purchasers have a variety of choices for enabling 2FA on their Kraken accounts. For instance, there are a number of widespread authenticator apps that generate one-time passcodes which can be utilized to authenticate an motion – like verifying their account sign-in course of. They’ll additionally use these passcodes to validate new pockets addresses being created or the initiation of a transaction from their Kraken account.

We actively encourage our purchasers to go one step additional by enabling a number of types of 2FAs when utilizing our platform. This is named multi-factor authentication (MFA), as every extra layer creates further safety for belongings and private info.

Much more safe: MFA and past

For individuals who need a fair increased degree of safety, we additionally allow 2FA via bodily {hardware} gadgets supporting the FIDO2 and WebAuthN requirements. Just like utilizing authentication apps, {hardware} safety gadgets generate distinctive keys that authenticate a tool or service.

Nonetheless, these {hardware} gadgets should not topic to dangers of phishing assaults, like a time-sensitive code may be. These gadgets use particular safety chips to securely generate keys which are distinctive to the genuine internet service or cellular app they’re designed for. This makes them proof against widespread phishing assaults.

Lastly, whereas implementing a 2FA technique is vital, its effectiveness may be lowered by weak password management. Many individuals nonetheless use quite common passwords similar to password1, spring2023, qwerty or hunter2 to safeguard their accounts. The excellent news is that it’s straightforward to create safe passwords; learn the way in about three minutes with this fast video:

Eight in 10 individuals declare to reuse their passwords throughout totally different web sites. Whereas this can be handy for a person to recollect, it creates a single level of failure for a sufferer ought to a cyber legal compromise an account with this widespread password. The attacker will then try to achieve entry to all different standard websites and apps and can seemingly achieve success in doing so.

The safety of crypto platforms, together with ours, and private cybersecurity hygiene might be very important for cryptoassets to maneuver into mainstream adoption. For those who’re fascinated by studying extra about our safety method, click on here for extra particulars.