Cyber attacks and system vulnerabilities have been on the agenda as a serious threat for a long time in the cryptocurrency world. However, artificial intelligence technologies cause these risks to grow even further. Charles Guillemet, technology director of Ledger, said that artificial intelligence tools have recently disrupted the balance in cyber security.
The role of artificial intelligence in attacks is increasing
According to Guillemet, attackers can now find system vulnerabilities with faster and lower-cost methods. Code vulnerabilities, which used to occur only after months of work by experienced experts, can be detected in a few seconds with the help of artificial intelligence. Guillemet pointed out the extent of the current risk by saying, “It is now quite easy to find vulnerabilities in the system and exploit them.”
The recent successive attacks also support this view. This week, a major vulnerability was exploited in the decentralized finance protocol called Drift in the Solana ecosystem, and approximately $285 million in digital assets were withdrawn from the platform. Last week, the yield protocol called Resolv suffered a loss of $25 million. According to DefiLlama’s data, a total of $1.4 billion worth of digital assets were lost due to cyber attacks or system vulnerabilities in the last year.
Security vulnerabilities are spreading rapidly
Charles Guillemet pointed out a very important balance in security. A system must be more difficult and costly to attack than the reward that can be obtained. However, artificial intelligence disrupts this balance. In particular, the fact that developers are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence-supported coding tools increases the rate of spread of security vulnerabilities.
Guillemet,
“There is no single button that makes it secure. A lot of code will be generated that is insecure by design.”
He revealed the current danger with his words. According to him, the cryptocurrency ecosystem should completely rethink its security protocols and act knowing the limits of classical control methods.
Guillemet evaluated that mathematical verification, that is, proving the code with formal methods, can be more effective than traditional audits, and emphasized that hardware-based security also offers an important layer of protection. Hardware wallets minimize the risk of attack by isolating private keys from the internet connection.
Recently developed malware also increases the extent of the danger. Malware that searches for wallet keys on compromised phones can lead to assets being withdrawn without any user action.
Guillemet stated that average cryptocurrency users should not make a firm assumption that systems will be secure.
“It is helpful to consider that most of the systems in use cannot be trusted.”
As a result, increasing demands for methods such as cold storage, stronger transaction security and keeping sensitive data offline may be preferred by crypto users in the future. However, relying solely on software does not seem to be enough; It is also necessary to be prepared against physical attacks. Guillemet stated that critical systems such as wallets and protocols will increase security adaptation, but the overall software ecosystem may experience difficulties in this process.
