International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 54

A (Guided) Tour of the Digital Wild West
fraudulent manipulation of prices via insider dealing.
DELOITTE: one of the Big Four legal and financial consultancies, offering advice
to clients on hacking, was itself hacked, with around 5 million emails stolen.
VINGCARD: this company supplies electronic locks and keys to tens of thousands
of hotels around the world, involving millions of hotel rooms. Its system was
hacked, though nobody seems to know to what extent.
The Risks and Dangers of Cryptocurrencies
This is not a retelling of the history of digital currencies, nor is it an explanation
of the technology on which they rely. Rather, it is an attempt to show
how, and how quickly, the most wonderful inventions of cyberspace have
been put to criminal use. First, a reminder: these cryptocurrencies are neither secure
nor regulated. Transactions carried out in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Monero,
Zcash, Dash, and so on, are untraceable and irreversible.
Crypto-yo-yo
What are these digital currencies “worth”? Strictly speaking, they are worth what
the market dictates, from vertiginous highs to unfathomable lows. At the time of
its first listing on August 16, 2010, a Bitcoin was “worth” 0.07 US cents. On December
17, 2017, that same Bitcoin was “worth” 20,000 dollars, and at the end of
December 2017, the “Bitcoin bubble” was “worth” 140 billion dollars, equivalent
to the market capitalization of the Coca-Cola Company. By the end of June 2018,
a Bitcoin was “worth” 6,500 dollars—a 53 percent drop from January to June 2018.
This roller-coaster ride can of course be explained by a range of geopolitical crises.
But two kinds of criminal factor are also involved:
• hackers are particularly drawn to these fragile cryptocurrency exchange platforms.
This is in direct contrast to systems based on Blockchain (a “secure
technology with no central point of control, used to store and share data”).
Blockchain is unbreakable.
• these cryptocurrencies are notorious as a tool used by criminals to handle ransom
monies, money laundering, settle drug payments, and so on.
Hackers Target Cryptocurrency Exchange Platforms
• Since their beginnings up until March 2015, one in three Bitcoin exchange
platforms were hacked. Half of those hacked subsequently closed.
• Between 2010 and 2016, 4 billion dollars were stolen by hackers from cryptocurrency
platforms. More recent examples include:
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