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This is certainly the worst case scenario - your security officer installing remote access software on developers machines, stealing bitcoins from production, t

This is certainly the worst case scenario - your security officer installing remote access software on developers machines, stealing bitcoins from production, then selling the company source code, access credentials and access to the internal network to a Russian hacker. Building a security system to handle this level of attack is a whole level beyond stopping even determined external attackers. Are there any best practices guides on this? One thing that the article showed is the importance of external security review to deal with the threat of internal incompetence or evil.

tlb 11y ago
Ultimately, the founders of bitcoin companies need to understand security themselves or they won't be able to hire and manage a competent team. Despite all the theoretical advantages of blockchain over conventional banking protocols, they are not doing categorically better than banks at avoiding major losses. Although, the numbers at http://www.risk.net/operational-risk-and-regulation/opinion/2454379/bangladesh-bank-fraud-is-a-comedy-of-op-risk-errors http://www.risk.net/operational-risk-and-regulation/opinion/... are shocking.
danielvf 11y ago
To partially answer my own question, there's a Crypto Currency Security Standard, with Level 2 claiming on preventing solo internal attacks. https://cryptoconsortium.github.io/CCSS/ https://cryptoconsortium.github.io/CCSS/
srdev 11y ago
> Are there any best practices guides on this? I'm not aware of any, but we did have quite a lot of procedures meant to mitigate this sort of things when I worked in banking. For one, none of the developers had any sort of access to production machines.
joe_the_user 11y ago
I am not sure why those who essentially believe in utopia through an organized "war of all against all" wouldn't expect that anyone in position of trust wouldn't try to rip them off as much as possible. "Damn you, you've betrayed our trust and prevented us from building a world where we didn't have to trust people..."
raesene9 11y ago
Well the traditional banks have been dealing with exactly this kind of threat for a long time. There's a load of practices that are designed to stop this kind of problem in that world. Things like :- - Enforced holidays. Frauds are hard to maintain when you're not there to keep cooking the books. - Audit reviews. an independant function with the ability and authority to review key processes - split authority. Key actions need multiple people to complete (statistically fraud incidence drops a lot when you need multiple people involved) - Strong background checking. When I worked at a bank they went back 10 years of employment history and required accounting for any gaps. + credit checking + criminal record checking etc. It's all possible, just quite expensive...
illumin8 11y ago
It's extremely expensive. Many banks and companies in the finance industry (hedge funds) do this: Hire at least 2 or 3 people for every job. Have them watch each other whenever touching systems that connect to production or deploying code to production. Never trust any one of them with the private keys or passwords to anything - they can only get half of a secret and their co-worker gets the other half. To do this effectively, you have to build a zero trust environment, and rely on surveillance to ensure that nobody is a bad actor. It really makes CIA/NSA level security look somewhat weak. It's also very expensive, as you can imagine.
- rodgerd 11y ago
  > Hire at least 2 or 3 people for every job. This is actually the key one - the more people who need to be corrupt, the harder it is to get away with being a crook. A surprising amount of internal fraud can be completed simply by requiring people to take solid blocks (2 weeks plus) of leave every year. That "inefficiency" the "lean 10x disruptors" congratulate themselves over does not always end well.
  - thedudemabry 11y ago
    I've kinda thought about this in the context of relatively complex technical jobs. One side of my family tree worked a bunch in the consumer banking (non-investment) industry, and I remember hearing story after story of someone being caught after their mandatory leave. But at a job where the ideal is automation, rather than manual verification and analysis, I wonder what additional obstacles must be placed in a potential attacker's way? Rotating keys based on employee schedules? I'm sure there are many well-studied ways to do this, but it's interesting to armchair analyze.
  - Terr_ 11y ago
    > solid blocks (2 weeks plus) of leave I've heard that's because a lot of those scams/tricks fall apart without constant gradual intervention, so an important part of it is that the employee is prevented from accessing most work-resources during that time.
cortesoft 11y ago
Step one is to properly vetting the person in charge of all your security.

tlb 11y ago

Ultimately, the founders of bitcoin companies need to understand security themselves or they won't be able to hire and manage a competent team. Despite all the theoretical advantages of blockchain over conventional banking protocols, they are not doing categorically better than banks at avoiding major losses. Although, the numbers at http://www.risk.net/operational-risk-and-regulation/opinion/2454379/bangladesh-bank-fraud-is-a-comedy-of-op-risk-errors http://www.risk.net/operational-risk-and-regulation/opinion/... are shocking.

danielvf 11y ago

To partially answer my own question, there's a Crypto Currency Security Standard, with Level 2 claiming on preventing solo internal attacks. https://cryptoconsortium.github.io/CCSS/ https://cryptoconsortium.github.io/CCSS/

srdev 11y ago

> Are there any best practices guides on this? I'm not aware of any, but we did have quite a lot of procedures meant to mitigate this sort of things when I worked in banking. For one, none of the developers had any sort of access to production machines.

joe_the_user 11y ago

I am not sure why those who essentially believe in utopia through an organized "war of all against all" wouldn't expect that anyone in position of trust wouldn't try to rip them off as much as possible. "Damn you, you've betrayed our trust and prevented us from building a world where we didn't have to trust people..."

raesene9 11y ago

Well the traditional banks have been dealing with exactly this kind of threat for a long time. There's a load of practices that are designed to stop this kind of problem in that world. Things like :- - Enforced holidays. Frauds are hard to maintain when you're not there to keep cooking the books. - Audit reviews. an independant function with the ability and authority to review key processes - split authority. Key actions need multiple people to complete (statistically fraud incidence drops a lot when you need multiple people involved) - Strong background checking. When I worked at a bank they went back 10 years of employment history and required accounting for any gaps. + credit checking + criminal record checking etc. It's all possible, just quite expensive...

illumin8 11y ago

It's extremely expensive. Many banks and companies in the finance industry (hedge funds) do this: Hire at least 2 or 3 people for every job. Have them watch each other whenever touching systems that connect to production or deploying code to production. Never trust any one of them with the private keys or passwords to anything - they can only get half of a secret and their co-worker gets the other half. To do this effectively, you have to build a zero trust environment, and rely on surveillance to ensure that nobody is a bad actor. It really makes CIA/NSA level security look somewhat weak. It's also very expensive, as you can imagine.

rodgerd 11y ago
> Hire at least 2 or 3 people for every job. This is actually the key one - the more people who need to be corrupt, the harder it is to get away with being a crook. A surprising amount of internal fraud can be completed simply by requiring people to take solid blocks (2 weeks plus) of leave every year. That "inefficiency" the "lean 10x disruptors" congratulate themselves over does not always end well.
- thedudemabry 11y ago
  I've kinda thought about this in the context of relatively complex technical jobs. One side of my family tree worked a bunch in the consumer banking (non-investment) industry, and I remember hearing story after story of someone being caught after their mandatory leave. But at a job where the ideal is automation, rather than manual verification and analysis, I wonder what additional obstacles must be placed in a potential attacker's way? Rotating keys based on employee schedules? I'm sure there are many well-studied ways to do this, but it's interesting to armchair analyze.
- Terr_ 11y ago
  > solid blocks (2 weeks plus) of leave I've heard that's because a lot of those scams/tricks fall apart without constant gradual intervention, so an important part of it is that the employee is prevented from accessing most work-resources during that time.

cortesoft 11y ago

Step one is to properly vetting the person in charge of all your security.