Blackmoon Financial Group and Group-IB Will Cooperate on Cybersecurity

Blackmoon Financial Group, established by Oleg Seydak (co-founder of Flint Capital) and Ilya Perekopsky (former vice president of Vkontakte), concluded a cooperation agreement with Group-IB, provider of solutions for early cyber threats identification.

Group-IB will provide support to Blackmoon in managing cyber security risks. The company has already launched Blackmoon Crypto project a platform for tokenization of investment funds. The counselling program includes comprehensive audits of the project technology infrastructure protection, recommendations for improvement of information security policies and practices, availability of Group-IB solutions for security perimeter control, as well as investigation of incidents. The assessment of compliance with recommendations and of preparedness for new attack types will be provided through regular Red Teaming of industry relevant real-life attacks scenarios.

Blockchain technology ensures unprecedented transparency and security of transactions. Public offering of tokens (or ICO) provides a modern blockchain-based alternative to crowdfunding, and it offers numerous opportunities for the development of startups market and launch of new projects. In 2017, more than $1.7 billion has been raised through ICO .

However, there is also a downside: because the transactions are anonymous, cyberattacks against ICO have recently become widespread. According to Chainalysis , hackers have managed to steal 10% of all ICO-invested funds in Ethereum in 2017. General damage has reached $225 million, on average, each of 30 000 investors have lost about $7 500. Among ICOs suffered from cyberattacks are The DAO (one third of $150 million lost because of the vulnerability in software), CoinDash (website hack resulted in theft of $7 million) and other high-profile attacks. According to experts, the adoption of comprehensive measures could have helped avoiding those losses.

The launch of ICO is a major step for a major project. The infrastructure should be safeguarded as much as possible, with the help of cutting edge security solutions, because investors’ money is at stake here. When launching Blackmoon Crypto, we adhered to the basic principles of compliance with regulator’s requirements, transparency and utmost security of all systems. Our approach implies servers fault tolerance, backup storage and disaster recovery plan, as well as multi-signature and cold wallets, secure storage of private identity keys. The security infrastructure support, provided by Group-IB, an established world leader in protection against cyberattacks, makes our systems more stable and helps us to ensure protection of funds, as well as reaffirm our commitment to token sale.

Oleg Seydak

CEO, Blackmoon Crypto

The quantity of cryptocurrency threats and blockchain project threats, registered by our threat intelligence system, has raised in conjunction with the bitcoin exchange rate. Development and promotion of clone sites to intercept access data to clients’ accounts has been industrialized; owners of bot-networks monitor all cases of infected devices having access to web and mobile applications for wallets, bourses, funds; vulnerabilities of smart-contracts are discussed at private hacker platforms. We have already witnessed something of that kind at the early years of online-banking hackers always go for money. The more efficient a fintech project is, the more extensive is ICO, and the more attacks it can potentially attract. We are happy to cooperate with the team, capable of matching its ambitions with technology risks, the one that is ready to ensure systematic prevention of deficiencies.

Ilya Sachkov

CEO, Group-IB

About Group-IB

Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Singapore, Group-IB is a leading creator of cybersecurity technologies to investigate, prevent, and fight digital crime. Combating cybercrime is in the company’s DNA, shaping its technological capabilities to defend businesses, citizens, and support law enforcement operations.

Group-IB’s Digital Crime Resistance Centers (DCRCs) are located in the Middle East, Europe, Central Asia, and Asia-Pacific to help critically analyze and promptly mitigate regional and country-specific threats. These mission-critical units help Group-IB strengthen its contribution to global cybercrime prevention and continually expand its threat-hunting capabilities.

Group-IB’s decentralized and autonomous operational structure helps it offer tailored, comprehensive support services with a high level of expertise. We map and mitigate adversaries’ tactics in each region, delivering customized cybersecurity solutions tailored to risk profiles and requirements of various industries, including retail, healthcare, gambling, financial services, manufacturing, crypto, and more.

The company’s global security leaders work in synergy with some of the industry’s most advanced technologies to offer detection and response capabilities that eliminate cyber disruptions agilely.

Group-IB’s Unified Risk Platform (URP) underpins its conviction to build a secure and trusted cyber environment by utilizing intelligence-driven technology and agile expertise that completely detects and defends against all nuances of digital crime. The platform proactively protects organizations’ critical infrastructure from sophisticated attacks while continuously analyzing potentially dangerous behavior all over their network.

The comprehensive suite includes the world’s most trusted Threat Intelligence, The most complete Fraud Protection, AI-powered Digital Risk Protection, Multi-layered protection with Managed Extended Detection and Response (XDR), All-infrastructure Business Email Protection, and External Attack Surface Management.

Furthermore, Group-IB’s full-cycle incident response and investigation capabilities have consistently elevated industry standards. This includes the 77,000+ hours of cybersecurity incident response completed by our sector-leading DFIR Laboratory, more than 1,400 successful investigations completed by the High-Tech Crime Investigations Department, and round-the-clock efforts of CERT-GIB.

Time and again, its solutions and services have been revered by leading advisory and analyst agencies such as Aite Novarica, Gartner®, Forrester, Frost & Sullivan, KuppingerCole Analysts AG, and more.

Being an active partner in global investigations, Group-IB collaborates with international law enforcement organizations such as INTERPOL, EUROPOL and AFRIPOL to create a safer cyberspace. Group-IB is also a member of the Europol European Cybercrime Centre’s (EC3) Advisory Group on Internet Security, which was created to foster closer cooperation between Europol and its leading non-law enforcement partners.