Over the last few years a plethora of Mobile apps have allowed users to buy, sell and trade cryptocurrentcies. With over 1,324 cryptocurrencies in existence as of November 2017 it is a smart business decision for these apps to jump on trend, with the total number of cryptocurrency apps allowing users to buy, sell and trade in the app store exceeding two thousand.
However recent studies of these apps in use have concluded users are at a massive risk of a breach in their currency. The study conducted by High-Tech Bridge concluded that around 90% of the applications contained vulnerabilities of a medium level and 75% of the applications contained a minimum of 2 high risk vulnerabilities. Further research into the at risk apps found that 66% of the applications were sending sensitive data without encryption and all (100%) of the applications reviewed did not have any protection against reverse engineering.
Statistics show that every single week a new cryptocurrencies security measures are compromised leaving millions of users at risk who have left their coins in millions of value in these exchanges. These apps are a hot target for cyber criminals who are looking to make quick cash and many will not pass up on ways to make easy money, with multiple groups targeting huge earners in the cryptocurrency market.
However these threats come as no surprise to Ilia Kolochenko, CEO and Founder of High-Tech Bridge, the CEO stated "Unfortunately, I am not surprised with the outcomes of the research. For many years, cybersecurity companies and independent experts were notifying mobile app developers about the risks of “agile” development that usually imply no framework to assure secure design, secure coding and hardening techniques or application security testing."
This comes in light of recent announcements that the Mastercard backed Revolut app has enabled users to trade several currencies such as Litecoin and Bitcoin, this announcement comes at a time when the currency market is experiencing record highs with Bitcoin reaching prices $15,000 several days ago and Litecoin reaching new highs with the currency up almost 3,000% in 2017.
In order for app developers to minimize these threats they need to address the weaknesses in their mobile applications and carefully plan and implement security measures in order to tackle these arising problems in the digital currency market.