It is not too hard these days in Vietnam to come across codes inviting people to sign up for an account on the Pi Network to dig for Pi (a kind of cryptocurrency). Some members even brag about using these Pis to exchange a motorbike, which is then proved to be fake. Besides the lack of transparency, Pi Network is considered unsafe by experts since Pis are born from a smart phone app, not Blockchain activities, which is valueless until now. Participants in this network are likely to face the risk of sensitive information leak as well.
Sky Mavis – a startup of a famous Vietnamese CEO in the blockchain community thanks to the game Axie Infinity – was hacked and lost over US$600 million this March. A month late, Sky Mavis announced that cyber criminals tried to trick the company’s employees, and one fell into the trap. Hackers then took advantage of this weak spot to access the infrastructure of Sky Mavis and control the transaction confirmation button. This attack type is called ‘spear phishing’.
Coin98 is a Vietnamese startup with its developed ecosystem called DeFi, offering services for online transactions, data storage and management. Its token – C98 – once reached the total market capitalization of over $1 billion. Obviously, service provision for end-users is the strength of Vietnam, but the trouble lies in the search for clients and the establishment of a sustainable and long-term crypto economy in accordance with the law, said Coin98’s media representative Tran Xuan Tien.
Head of BKAV Cyber-security Department Vu Minh Hieu warned that the risks from cryptocurrencies come from the total control of currency creators over the system to change the game rules whenever they want, leading to the possibility of unexpected value changes of these currencies. The risks also come from trading floors, whose owners might take the money and run away. And the risks might come from cyber-attacks to these platforms as well, since no one ensure their security.
“There is absolutely no legal warranty but promises of currency creators. Therefore, investors need to carefully evaluate the reliability of any creators of the currency they want to invest in, as well as prestigious trading floors”, stressed Mr. Hieu.
Kaspersky stated that professional cyber criminals like Lazarus group is a warning that there will be more large-scaled attacks to cryptocurrency and non-fungible token (NFT) businesses in 2022.
