How and where to report a scam, hack or malicious activity involving digital assets
Making digital cyberspace safer doesn’t have to be left to the big cybersecurity corporations. Individuals and small businesses can also play a role in making the Internet and the Wb 3.0 a more secure place to do business and exchange information.
We are approaching an ideal world where all information about the newest cybersecurity threats can be reported and shared with everyone in real-time. In fact, the quicker crowdsourced threat information is shared amongst us, the safer the Internet would also assuredly become for transactions and business operations.
However, a few hurdles remain.
Many Remain Hesitant to Report Cybersecurity Breaches
Due to ongoing stigma, many companies remain reticent to share information about the security breaches they’ve suffered, even when directed to do so by law.
According to a recent survey conducted by Ipsos MORI, “only 43% of businesses reported their most disruptive breach outside their organization”. A similar article suggests that the lack of reporting comes out of fear of losing customer confidence or being in violation of regulations. Even the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has a web page where security incidents can be reported, but it is not clear how many organizations, or even whether individuals self-report when their own defenses get compromised.
Managing Incident Responses for Reported Cybersecurity Incidents
The best way to manage cybersecurity incidents, and to defend against them, is to make threat identification and information dissemination as seamless and transparent as possible.
Organizations need to have a cybersecurity incident response management system in place that enables them to keep track, report, and disseminate information about incidents, intrusion attempts, and breaches.
As regulators, companies, and consumers begin to understand that security incidents or hacking attempts are inevitable, the focus will shift to sharing the latest threat information to help others shore up their own defenses against threats-including the newest attack vectors.
Why We Should Quickly Inform Others of Suspicious Network Activity
Oftentimes, a security breach does not just happen out of the blue. Before a security breach actually happens, there are often some bouts of suspicious network activity in the hours or days leading up to the breach.
This is often the case with cryptocurrency exchanges. Suspicious activity by the hackers usually precedes a major exchange hack, but exchanges often miss it. This is partly because they don’t have a security incident response plan — or more importantly — a tool that automatically detects suspicious activity and alerts their staff of what is happening before the damage is done.
Fortunately, there are tools available today that allow anyone to 1) get real-time alerts of suspicious activity, and 2) immediately report incidents or suspicious activity to a threat intelligence repository that is fully accessible to anyone in the world. Individuals can now submit case reports of incidents and/or suspicious activity using the UPPward browser extension (available for free, supported by Chrome, Firefox, Brave and Edge browsers).
Tools That Help Minimize Exposure to Zero-Day Attacks
Hackers are always inventing new attack vectors, each more sophisticated than the last. While preventing zero-day attacks may not be possible, we can use a variety of tools that take advantage of crowdsourced intelligence to minimize our exposure to new attack vectors.
The backbone of crowdsourced intelligence tools is the Threat Reputation Database (TRDB) created by Uppsala Security. This blockchain-based data hub pools all the crowdsourced information about the latest threats and attack vectors from around the world. Once the security experts verify the validity of each case submission, each new threat is documented in the TRDB.
How Can Individual Victims Report and Get Support From Top Security Experts
Besides the security tools that are addressed to businesses and organizations, Uppsala Security’s suite of products and services also offers full support to individual users that have fallen victims of online malicious activity which led to the loss of digital assets/cryptocurrencies. With the Crypto Incident Response Center (exclusively focused on South Korea) and the Digital Asset Tracking Services (global), victims of online theft involving cryptocurrencies and digital assets are able to request the start of a fully fledged investigation.
After the investigation is ended and the tracking report is generated by Uppsala Security, this can be submitted to the law enforcement agencies as legal evidence for further procedures.
About Uppsala Security
Uppsala Security built Sentinel Protocol, the first crowdsourced Threat Intelligence Platform powered by artificial intelligence, blockchain technology, and machine learning. Supporting the framework is a team of experienced cyber security professionals who have developed an award-winning suite of advanced tools and services for Crypto AML/CFT, Transaction Risk Management (KYC/KYT), Transaction Tracking, Regulatory Compliance, and Cybersecurity enabling organizations of every type and size to protect their crypto assets from malicious attacks and scams while meeting stringent regulatory compliance standards. Today Uppsala Security has over two thousand (2K+) users including government agencies, financial institutions and leading enterprises providing crypto exchanges, payment services, wallets, custodial services, gaming, and fintech solutions.
Uppsala Security is headquartered in Singapore, and has branch offices in Seoul, South Korea and Tokyo, Japan.
