Cryptocurrency hack losses totaled Y662 mil in 2017: police

No security in Japan, not even a basic understanding of it.

No security in Japan, not even a basic understanding of it.

When it comes to online security, Japan (and to be fair, many other countries), have a poor overall understanding of it. That said, it's not blanket - I've worked with a few companies that do things properly and are particularly invested in security. I do an audit of companies' security before taking on new vendors.

Why is the estimate at 1-2 percent of real losses? Later in the article it gives the accurate figure for the Coincheck hack.

Why is the estimate at 1-2 percent of real losses? Later in the article it gives the accurate figure for the Coincheck hack.

Read the title of the article again. Cryptocurrency hack losses totaled Y662 mil in 2017: police

And when did the Coincheck hack happen?

"When it comes to online security, Japan (and to be fair, many other countries), have a poor overall understanding of it."

Tell me about it. 2FA. 2 Factor Authorization should be standard on ALL accounts. Amazon USA had it 2 full years before Amazon Japan. What is the excuse?

Good catch Yubaru. So in 2018, crytopcurrency losses to hacking should be at least 100 times greater than the previous year. Looking forward to that headline in 2019.

In many cases, hackers accessed a user's "wallet," where the public and private keys used to account for and spend virtual currencies are stored.

This sentence is a mess. First, public and private keys are not stored in a wallet. A wallet is a public key (that's ALL a wallet is). The problem is that the exchanges were storing the private keys unsecured, allowing hackers to gain access to the private keys, and therefore 'unlock' the wallets. And this wasn't in 'many' cases, as far as I know it was in ALL cases. Cryptocurrencies have not been hacked, only the exchanges that interact with the cryptocurrencies.

To be fair though, one of the difficulties in reporting on cryptocurrencies is that the complexity level required to understand how they work is more than your average reporter can comprehend. And even if they can understand it, they need to write for a readership that in most cases won't be able to understand it.

The problem is that many people read the reporting, and take the incorrect information provided at face value.

@Strangerland Unfortunately, that goes for far more than just cryptocurrency. Just about any time I see a report on something I have in-depth knowledge of, it is wildly inaccurate and misleading. Reporters just need so many words by a certain time each day about subjects they usually know little about. That's why most news is a waste of time, at best.

There is plenty of quality writing on cryptocurrency (and just about everything else). Most people will not seek it out, but will form their opinions based on the poorly written reports.

Cryptocurrency will eventually be used by everybody. But they won't know it, they'll just think of it like money. Very few people know how that works either.

they'll just think of it like money. Very few people know how that works either.

That’s a good point.