The big bitcoin and crypto breach events are well-known news items. There was the Mt. Gox hack that saw $473 million in bitcoin disappear, the Bitfinex hack in which $72 million in value was lost overnight and the reigning champion crypto hack, the January 2018 Coincheck hack that saw $530 million in cryptocurrency go missing.
But while those big hacks — and the large sums of money heisted all at once — are eye-catching, bitcoin security expert Hartej Sawhney recently told CNBC that they might not be the biggest, or most costly threat to bitcoin security out there. The big, and under-discussed threat, he said, is the approximately $2.5 million that, in his estimate, is stolen from cryptocurrency exchanges all over the world every single day.
“Exchanges need to learn to value security, but they are not getting regular penetration testing from cybersecurity companies,” he said.