More Than $1.2 Billion In Crypto Stolen Since 2017: Is Now A Time For Cybercrime Enforcement?

According to the research from the Anti-Phishing Working Group, more than $1.2 billion worth of cryptocurrencies have been stolen since the beginning of 2017. The report comes from Reuters and is a combination of both reported and unreported thefts with about 20% or less that have been recovered.

Dave Jevans who is the CEO of a cryptosecurity firm named CipherTrace and chairman of the APWG told Reuters that despite it just started, the new General Data Protection Regulation may negatively affect global law enforcement agencies and their ability to find criminals stealing cryptocurrency.

As he said:

“GDPR will negatively impact the overall security of the internet and will also inadvertently aid cybercriminals. By restricting access to critical information, the new law will significantly hinder investigations into cybercrime, cryptocurrency theft, phishing, ransomware, malware, fraud and crypto-jacking.”

Moreover, the new GDPR regulations will mean that the European domain data will no longer be added to the WHOIS internet database, making investigators lose access to data needed for the prosecution of cyber-criminals.

“So what we’re going to see is that not only the European market goes dark for all of us; so all the bad guys will flow to Europe because you can actually access the world from Europe and there’s no way you can get the data anymore.”

The GDPR may also affect blockchain in a negative way – directly conflicting with its core technology (which is based on decentralization) and the GDPR framework is written with the assumption that personal data must be stored in a centralized system.