Keeping Crypto Assets, Smart Rights & Private Data Safe
The Emergence of Crypto Assets, Smart Rights & New Data Privacy Concerns
Enterprise decision-makers are already holding, owning and leveraging new crypto assets (cryptocurrencies, non-fungible tokens), smart rights and private data sets with enterprise blockchains, where previously those assets, rights and data sets, were either non-existent, held offline, or stored on less advanced, less efficient technologies.
While such advancements will enable adopters to leverage greater value and efficiencies, the sudden and incredible increase in digitized value available online has already attracted a new generation of greater attacks, exploits and thefts by bad actors. Not to mention, the cost of human errors and mistakes become much costlier when factoring in the immutability of technologies like permissionless blockchains.
Cryptosec, and its specialist crypto investigations firm Crypto Investigators, works with enterprise leaders to assess and achieve Enterprise-Grade Custodial Crypto Security for their enterprise to hold and leverage crypto assets and smart rights, whilst ensuring data privacy, beyond the reach of next generation security breaches and errors.
Crypto assets include cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin and Ethereum) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Enterprises today are already creating, holding and leveraging crypto assets for various reasons that serve their greater organisational objectives. And investors, traders, hedge fund managers and family offices are holding varying degrees of crypto assets for clients, to diversify their client portfolios and, in some cases, as a hedge against inflation.
While crypto assets are an attractive new asset class for enterprises, because the technology is still being developed, security should make up a critical component of any crypto asset management plan. As with any crypto-based infrastructure, and potentially even moreso in the case of crypto assets, protecting keys and custodial storage is paramount to ensure the security of crypto assets.
The ownership of crypto assets is more complicated than the physical ownership of property: it requires the owner to have exclusive sole access to private cryptographic keys for a digital wallet where the asset is stored. Meaning, anyone who knows both the public and private key for a digital wallet can practically, and effectively, “own” that crypto asset also. So, one of the main challenges in the safe custody of crypto assets has to do with auditing keys and wallets, and then designing and implementing stringent policies and procedures around the management of keys and wallets, including the people, processes and technologies that form part of such management.
Storage options are varied, and need to be fully considered for compatibility with existing enterprise systems and procedures. For instance, different crypto storage options include self-custody, full third-party custody (exchange platforms), hardware wallets, offline software wallets, notary as recovery service, secret-sharing of private keys, on-chain multi-signature, threshold MPC signatures, as well as bespoke enterprise off-chain infrastructure to store crypto assets.
Indeed, hackers attack every 39 seconds, or 2,244 times per day and those figures are expected to soon double as the adoption and value of crypto assets continue to increase. Meanwhile, the security of crypto assets are just as easily under threat due to human error.
Cryptosec works with enterprise clients to take proactive measures, to apprise and mitigate the greater security challenges – that come with creating, holding and leveraging crypto assets – to ensure their systems and procedures achieve enhanced security to cover their increased crypto asset portfolios. Working with enterprise leaders early, we are able to prevent and contain losses due to attacks and accidents of various nature (system or device failure, theft or misplacement, human error or memory deficits, death of the key holder), without compromising the accessibility and the transactional ease of use of crypto assets.
The organisation of rights and value are rapidly transitioning to an “Internet of Value”, whereby most individual, enterprise and state rights and value will eventually be recorded and stored digitally with the use of cryptographic, smart technologies.
The potential for smart rights cannot be underestimated. Smart rights will eventually replace existing records for property rights (real, personal and intellectual), also known as “smart property”, and enforcement rights to enforce rights and action with respect to property, debts, mortgages, securities, equities, licensing and contracts (smart contract, Ricardian contracts and paper contracts). Many enterprises are either actively using smart rights or are already exploring ways to implement smart rights with their existing systems and governing rules.
Cryptosec works with enterprise leaders to assess, record and secure enterprise smart rights with Enterprise-Grade Custodial Crypto Security.
Information breach incidents continue to grow and existing solutions struggle to keep pace.
New privacy and data protection regulations, such as EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), continue strengthening the data rights of citizens and increasing corporate compliance obligations and costs. Those are further complicated when considering major privacy problems with the use of blockchain networks and related technologies. That is, because certain blockchain and other networks are public, permissionless, open source, they present new privacy issues that will only add to the burdens of enterprises as data stewards in reporting like GDPR and risk management.
To ensure the privacy of enterprise data, Cryptosec offers Privacy Threshold Analysis (PTA), Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA), and Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA).
Cryptosec also works with enterprise decision-makers on data privacy to propose and design security and privacy solutions where required and to give enterprise clients data custody clearances, to ultimately provide guidance on risk management and reporting around data privacy in enterprise inter-operations.