Suppose you are one of a growing number of people interested in cryptocurrencies. In this case, you might find it interesting that nearly 7,000 people lost more than $80 million between October and March, a 1,000% increase from the previous year, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

The problem is that there is no way to protect your account from theft. There is no promise in the cryptocurrency space. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which insures your account losses, does not exist in traditional banking. Therefore, if your property is stolen, you have no recourse.

More than 7,000 consumers lost more than $80 million between October 2021 and March 2021, an increase of 1,000%, the FTC reported.

To avoid theft (averaging over $10 million per day by the end of 2020) or potential wealth lock-up, secure access to these cryptoassets must be enabled.

But how do you ensure users always have access to their accounts? This depends on how the account is configured, typically using knowledge-based authentication (KBA) or a password. Unfortunately, passwords are not enough to protect high-value accounts, as they can be easily compromised or stolen through phishing attempts.

Also, if you own a less-used crypto wallet, you may forget your password, and if there is a recovery method, you may have difficulty trying to get it back. Finally, memory loss (what's my favorite activity again?), the accessibility of "personal" information online (you can find my mother's maiden name online for a few dollars), and other issues that affect KBA.

The frequency of cryptocurrency account takeovers is increasing; it doesn’t help that there aren’t many pre-established trust links between wallet providers or exchanges and users, and that almost all transactions are completed within minutes and difficult to reverse.

Unfortunately, these acquisitions use a strikingly similar tactic that has been used in traditional banking for years: attackers first try to gather credentials, and then stuff. If that doesn't work - assuming the user protects their account with a second SMS factor - they try some of the better known ways to bypass SMS, eg: B. SIM replacement.

Even extremely secure tokens or specialized authentication software are vulnerable to highly motivated hackers—there’s no shortage of motivation when personal funds are at stake.

Additionally, with the number of Bitcoin exchange users and the need for strong network security increasing dramatically, users have to wait weeks or even months to regain access to their accounts, as users struggle to prove ownership of their accounts.

Authentication techniques can be useful.

So how to solve it? Using standards-based user authentication, embedded in billions of devices worldwide, accessible to almost anyone with a modern browser, proven to resist account takeover and phishing. Additionally, the FIDO (Fast Online Authentication) authentication method ensures that all encrypted credentials are stored on the user's device, preventing the most sophisticated attacks.