Cryptocurrency wallet scams are on the rise, and hackers are targeting individuals and entire wallet providers. With the notorious Binance breach, they managed to steal two-factor authentication data, API keys and more. These are some important points to consider to minimize risks.

What Is a Cryptocurrency Wallet?

A cryptocurrency wallet lets people send and accept crypto payments. It is a software program that stores public and private keys, and it works with a variety of blockchains. Users need those keys to make payments or access their funds. Other users can see public keys and use them to send funds, and only the wallet owner knows the private key. There are mobile wallets, which keep data online. Also, there are hardware wallets, which store data offline.

How Does a Cryptocurrency Wallet Work?

Although the wallet is a software program, it is digitally stored on a blockchain, which is a secure ledger of transaction records across a network. Since the software is linked to the blockchain, it allows easier transmission of transaction details. One user sends a payment using a public key for the recipient’s account. To send or access funds, an account holder must also use a private key. Completed wallet transfers are recorded on the blockchain ledger.

Why Does a Cryptocurrency Wallet Pose a Risk?

Some people mistakenly think that cryptocurrency wallets are more secure than they actually are because they are linked to a blockchain. However, the software program itself can be vulnerable to misuse. Also, a misguided sense of security may lead people to fall victim to other types of scams that trick them into sharing information with thieves.

How Is Identity Theft Committed in Cryptocurrency Scams?

Identity theft in a cryptocurrency scam can occur through phishing. Users may receive emails that look legitimate and redirect them to websites asking for personal information. If a victim fills in personal information for identity verification, the scammers can steal that information and misappropriate it. Hackers can also access any personal data stored in a wallet program.

How Is a Cryptocurrency Wallet Accessed by Unauthorized Persons?

People often access cryptocurrency wallets through phishing and malware. Since many wallet providers store private keys with user data, a hacker can see a key by accessing a user’s account.

What Types of Programs Do Crypto Thieves Use?

Remote access trojans and cryptocurrency stealing malware programs are the most common methods. They are easier to create and use than most people think, and thieves can often execute Remote Access Trojan (RAT) and Specialized Cryptocurrency-Stealing Malware (CCSM) without users’ knowledge until their crypto balances are gone.

How Is Cryptocurrency Transferred Out of a Wallet?

If a hacker manages to access a cryptocurrency wallet, a stored private key may be available. The thief can then execute a transaction to another account by using the public and private keys.

Which Cryptocurrency Is Targeted Most Often?

Bitcoin is one of the most common cryptocurrencies that thieves seek, and Bitcoin wallet scams are becoming their preferred method of stealing. Although the cryptocurrency itself is protected by iron-clad cryptography, thieves conducting Bitcoin scams have stolen millions of dollars from users in recent years because of weaknesses in private key storage systems. Ethereum is another cryptocurrency that they target.

What Are the Common Cryptocurrency Wallet Scams?

The previous sections provide an overview of phishing and hacking risks. Spoofing is another method. With spoofing, a thief uses malware to access a user’s program remotely. After that, the thief may change the public key for the user’s wallet, and someone who attempts to send money to that person may send it to the altered address if the change is overlooked.

How To Prevent Cryptocurrency Wallet Scams

There are several ways to develop a more comprehensive safety strategy for using a cryptocurrency wallet. The first and most important step is to thoroughly understand how cryptocurrency wallets work. Always use a reputable program, and follow these additional tips:

1. Do not share private keys with anyone else.
2. If possible, store private key information offline in a secure place or in written form.
3. Do not reveal any crypto holdings publicly online with any personal information.
4. Always use two-factor authentication and strong passwords.
5. Never reply to any communication attempt that asks for personal information.
6. Do not keep cryptocurrency in a wallet for a long time.
7. Only access the wallet when a secure internet connection is available.
8. Use hardware wallets if possible to store cryptocurrency.
9. Always cross-check wallet addresses when sending funds.
10. For extra security, spread out crypto funds across multiple online and offline wallets.
11. Instead of using automatic updates, wait a few days to run new updates to see if there are any vulnerabilities or other issues.

Are Cryptocurrency Wallets Right for Beginners?

Not all wallets are ideal for beginners. Some wallet providers are now developing private cryptocurrencies, AI wallets and other benefits that keep beginners and all people safer. The key is to do thorough research before choosing one or more wallet providers. Also, the tips in the previous section are important to remember.

What To Do After Cryptocurrency Is Stolen

The first step is to contact the wallet program provider immediately. Some companies reimburse users when hackers steal funds. If the funds were stolen and transferred to another cryptocurrency wallet, it may be possible to recover them by filing a lawsuit against “Persons Unknown” when the thief’s identity is unknown. If law enforcement can track the funds to another wallet platform, they can often identify the owner of that wallet. If there are mixers or exchanges involved in the scam, matters can become complicated. However, for a substantial loss, it is worth retaining an attorney who is experienced in cryptocurrency scams. Victims must act quickly to maximize the chances of recovering stolen funds.

Read another article about Decentralize Finance or DeFi.

Data Loss Prevention encompasses various approaches, processes, and tools to protect sensitive data from unauthorized changes, destruction, sharing, theft, and loss.

What data falls within the DLP scope?

Any data can be flagged by an organization to be within the scope of the DLP program, however, generally speaking, sensitive data includes financial information, credit card numbers, social security numbers, health information and other personally identifiable information (PII).

Is DLP required by laws and regulations?

Various government bodies have produced a significant number of unprecedented data protection laws and regulations. These laws cover areas such as personal data privacy, implementation of data protection controls, and various data breach requirements and data leak notification.

Data security involves preventing malicious attacks on organizations’ critical data and unauthorized access whether intentional or accidental to prevent data loss. The loss of information is not only a severe problem for the organizations but also for consumers and other third parties. To protect all parties, the government requires every organization to implement tools and processes to prevent data loss. DLP is a requirement by various laws and regulations that companies must adhere to with a set of rules and restrictions that must be followed by the employees.

What is the role of DLP in compliance?

Most people believe that their personal information is not safe and governments often publish rules and regulations to force and guide companies to protect consumer sensitive data. These laws are, sometimes overlapping, however they provide guidance on how sensitive data should be handled. Data loss prevention programs help organizations reduce their regulatory compliance risks, protect customer data, and prevent data breaches that can lead to lawsuits and fines.

What are the benefits of a DLP program?

Data loss prevention is paramount to any organization that collects, stores, and processes personal information. Data volume has undergone tremendous growth, dramatically increasing chances of data loss risk such as accidental disclosure and theft. The reality is data breach cases are hitting unprepared organizations very hard. Here are two main reasons why your organization should have data loss prevention strategies in place.

Personal information protection and regulatory compliance

If your organization’s operations involve collecting, processing, and storing personally identifiable identifiable with financial or health information, the law require you to comply with some regulations. Such regulations require you to protect your customer’s sensitive data and maintain the privacy of their private information.

Business and intellectual property data

If you are like most companies, you probably have critical business data and intellectual property and secrets that would put your company in a competitive disadvantage if the data is leaked or stolen. Therefore, your organization needs to consider the inclusion of your business data in the DLP scope in close consultation with a certified data protection expert to classify intellectual property in structured and unstructured forms.

According to Henry Bagdasarian, “taking a layered and comprehensive approach to data protection will help categorize and prioritize data, improve data security, and speed up the DLP program implementation while reducing the initial cost and hurdles.”

How can companies implement DLP?

The DLP implementation team may consider the following:

Setting data priority
This is the initial phase in the implementation of DLP. Start by figuring out the essential data in the organization. For instance, you can prioritize by PII followed by business data such as design documents and intellectual property.

Categorize data
Use classification tags to classify your data since it helps to track its usage in the DLP system.

Identify the data at risk
Data that is shared with clients and partners may pose a greater risk than data which never moves out of a secured area such as the cloud. Data moving in and out of endpoints are also cause for concern.

Consider data protection controls
This is an essential step, and you have to develop various layered controls aimed at reducing data risk. Always monitor the data of your organization to have an insight regarding threats, risks, and data protection gaps.

Deploy tools
An effective DLP program can not exist without an effective tool. Automate DLP processes as much as possible and leverage the reporting capabilities of the DLP system for maximum benefits.

What are the DLP best practices that companies must be aware of?

While cyber crime tactics evolves, cybersecurity technology has made tremendous advancements to counter cyber threats specially in the area of artificial intelligence. The following are leading practices that will work wonders in securing your organization’s data:

Respect customer privacy – According to Henry Bagdasarian:

“protecting customer information should not just be about regulatory compliance but rather a business objective to protect the business brand, earn customer loyalty and respect, avoid penalties and lawsuits, keep the focus on the business rather than deal with the aftermath of a data breach, maintain highest level of productivity, be socially responsible, and improve corporate citizenship.”

Lock down data access – If you collect and keep sensitive data, you need to take extra caution to guard it against cyber fraudsters. Besides getting stolen, there are a few accidents that can happen unintentionally and put sensitive data at risk. Therefore, it is prudent to have proper access management controls in place that only allow authorized people to access data.

Consider multifactor authentication – If you haven’t yet implemented multi-factor authentication at your organization, you might be at risk. There are various cybercrime tactics that will bypass a password in minutes. Invest in a tool to deploy multi-factor authentication in your organization.

Have data visibility – A comprehensive DLP software can go a long way in tracking and monitoring your data on networks, endpoints, and cloud. This will provide more significant insights into how individual users interact with your organization’s data.

Document and report – To be transparent and avoid conflicts with other groups like Legal and compliance, Henry Bagdasarian recommends documenting all data protection activities and periodically reporting on the state of DLP to all stakeholders for planning purposes, budgeting, sharing lessons learned, improving, and finally seeking consensus on what needs to be protected and how.

Define responsibilities – Every individual in the organization involved in the DLP program must have clear roles and responsibilities to ensure the success of the DLP program.

Identify data to protect – You must take time to understand all types of data in the organization and classify them in order to create your data protection plan.

Publish policies – Develop, publish, and communicate data protection policies and guidelines to collectively help the organization achieve its data protection objectives.

Measure and refine – In order to select the most appropriate and effective data loss prevention measures, select and use an evaluation framework. This is essential in making informed decisions about the criteria to be used for data loss prevention.

Keep it simple – To keep your DLP plan simple, apply a layered approach where you first identify the most critical data and apply targeted DLP controls for efficient and effective data protection.

Educate Employees – Educate your employees about the data protection threats, consequences of data loss, and their responsibilities for protection data in accordance with the established policies. Train employees on various approaches to how they can mitigate data risks and data loss. The training should consider your internal data protection policies and procedures.

Monitor – An effective DLP program includes monitoring of data related activities. Monitor data access, changes, and transfer.

Final thoughts on DLP implementation

1. Before implementing a DLP solution, you need to identify critical data and how that data flows in and out of the environment, and from one system to another.
2. Engage IT and business experts to review the data protection strategy to ensure they are viable and supported.
3. Consider how the implementation will affect organizations’ culture.
4. Select a tool by considering its capabilities and limitations for your needs.
5. Consider the risks associated with third party service providers who have access to your data.

Can systems and automation help with DLP?

Data loss prevention systems can help detect data breach instances and prevent data leak or transfer trough monitoring and blocking sensitive data while in transit, in use, and at rest.

Additionally, DLP tools and software are used to filter data streams and manage data stored in the cloud. This ensures that data in motion, at rest, and in use is secure.

This software classifies essential, confidential, and regulated data within the organization’s predefined policy pack. DLP software helps classify data and gives insight into the organization’s various violations and set of policies.

After classifying the violations, the software seeks to remediate through alerts, including remedial actions and encryption.

DLP products

Some of the DLP systems and vendors in the market include:

1. Code42
2. Symantec
3. Digital Guardian
4. Checkpoint
5. Fidelis
6. Proofpoint email DLP
7. Trend Micro Integrated DLP

Identity and access management is a growing field that focuses on controlling access to data and systems throughout an enterprise. Although data is extremely valuable for organizations, it can also be very harmful if it falls into the wrong hands. Many data breaches occur because of unauthorized access that ultimately stems from mistakes that are made internally within a company. Therefore, IAM professionals focus on ensuring that data systems are made available only to individuals who need to have access.

IAM Jobs

The IAM field is growing rapidly, so there are a broad range of jobs that people who specialize in IAM can obtain after completing their education. Companies often define identity and access management roles in different ways, but people with IAM backgrounds are still generally preferred for these positions.

Additionally, some jobs require training in additional areas that go beyond IAM. Many professionals in the IAM space have substantial backgrounds in technology, so you may be able to get one of these jobs if you have additional training. Some of the most common jobs for IAM specialists are explained below.

Identity and Access Management Engineer

Identity and access management engineers are responsible for the technical aspects of implementing IAM best practices. In large organizations, IAM engineers often work under an individual who is designated as the organization’s IAM manager. IAM engineers usually fall under the data management organization in a large corporate environment. Smaller organizations, on the other hand, may hire IAM engineers to manage a wide range of access tasks, including system development, implementation, and configuration, IT administration, access provisioning, de-provisioning, and monitoring, registering new users, and other related tasks.

Requirements: IAM engineers should have a strong understanding of a wide range of programming languages, including C, C++, and Java. Most importantly, IAM engineers must be highly trained and experienced in role-based access control protocols. It can also be helpful for job seekers to have a strong general background in IT administration.
Median salary: $51,881

Data Solutions Specialist

Data solutions specialists assist organizations by supporting their decision-making with data solutions. In practice, data solutions specialists often help with KPIs, dashboards, analytics, and data-based processes. Some data solutions specialists are also responsible for reducing risk derived from unauthorized access.

Requirements: You should at least have a bachelor’s degree in computer science to qualify for the best data solutions jobs. Many employers are looking for candidates with at least three years of experience. Data solutions specialists have to work with a wide range of stakeholders, so job candidates should have strong interpersonal skills and leadership experience.
Median salary: $42,616

IT Security Administrator

IT security administrators are responsible for installing and managing the security solutions that an organization uses. Data management is only one part of an IT security administrator’s work since practitioners are responsible for securing data as it moves throughout a network and is used on end-user nodes. Other responsibilities include preventing the unauthorized deletion of data and troubleshooting problems that arise.

Requirements: You should ideally have a bachelor’s degree, but some employers are willing to consider people who have an associate’s degree and sufficient real-world experience. Many applicants have advanced training certificates, so you should work to accumulate plenty of additional credentials to remain competitive in the IT marketplace. Most importantly, you should have a strong overall understanding of computers, networks, and data systems.
Median salary: $71,321

Information Security Operations Manager

Information security operations managers are tasked with overseeing IAM staff members within an organization. A major part of an information security operations manager’s work involves managing the individual employees who work under them. However, the job is challenging because these managers are ultimately responsible for more security operations than they could possibly manage on their own. Delegation and effective organization are, thus, crucial tools that information security operations managers must know how to rely on.

Requirements: Having a bachelor’s degree is a minimum requirement. Some employers who hire for senior-level roles prefer a candidate with a master’s degree. Your educational background should be in both IAM and management.
Median salary: $83,332

Solutions Architect

Solutions architects are tasked with developing an application that is used by an organization. Since solutions architects are responsible for all aspects of developing an application, they need to have a strong background in application development, negotiation, management, and system security. IAM professionals are highly sought by employers looking to hire solutions architects because of their background in information security. If you are an IAM professional with a background in application development, solutions architect jobs can provide enormous opportunities for career development.

Requirements: Candidates should have a good balance of business and technical skills. You are likely to work directly with your company’s senior management team, so you should have strong interpersonal skills to explain technical matters in layman’s terms.
Median salary: $110,663

How Can New College Graduates Enter the IAM Job Market?

The best way to become an IAM professional is to major in a field that is relevant to IAM. However, many employers are only concerned about whether a potential candidate has an undergraduate degree. Therefore, you can transition to IAM by either going back to school to get a second degree in IAM or by obtaining relevant certifications on your own. To decide between getting a second degree or obtaining certifications, consider how closely your major and resume are related to IAM.

Ideal Majors for Entering the IAM Field?

In an ideal world, you should try to attend a university that offers undergraduate or graduate degrees in identity and access management. Otherwise, you should consider majoring in related fields, such as information technology, software engineering, or cybersecurity.

Getting an IAM Job

To increase your chances of getting an IAM job, you should consider taking several steps to stand out in the job market. Some of the actions you can take include:

Optimize your resume: If you plan to canvass employers with your resume to get a job, it is crucial that your resume is perfect. After spending more than 10,000 hours getting the skills necessary to perform as an IAM professional, putting in another 100 hours to perfect your resume makes sense.
Get an internship: Nothing shows you are serious about becoming an IAM professional more than taking on an internship in the field. Keep in mind that IAM is in a period of very rapid growth, so people who complete an IAM internship program are usually snapped up by employers very quickly. Additionally, the company that hires you for an IAM internship will hire you most of the time.
Become active on LinkedIn: In today’s job market, LinkedIn is a crucial tool for highly specialized professionals. Since demand is very high for IAM professionals, it is not uncommon for new graduates with IAM majors to get calls or messages from employers asking for an interview. When employers reach out to you, job offers usually come with much higher salaries and an elevated level of respect from senior management.
Network with IAM professionals: One of the fastest ways to get top jobs in IAM is to get to know professionals who are currently active in the field. Attend IAM industry events, join local cybersecurity groups, and attend cybersecurity or data-related open houses hosted by companies. More importantly, join Identity Management Institute (IMI) to get certified in IAM, follow IMI on LinkedIn, and join various LinkedIn groups.

Future Prospects for IAM Professionals

Demand for data systems is growing very rapidly. AWS, for instance, grew 34 percent in 2019. Rapid growth is projected to continue for well over a decade, and this growth will continue to cause demand for IAM professionals to greatly outstrip available supply.

Transitioning from Similar Backgrounds to IAM

If you are in another field and want to transition to a career in IAM, there are many options available. Some employers offer fast-track programs to move proven tech-related employees into IAM roles as quickly as possible. As with new graduates, you can also consider getting a second major or obtaining a certificate.

What Salary Can IAM Professionals Expect?

Overall, IAM analysts make an average of $79,870 per year. However, IAM jobs vary widely in terms of the scope of responsibility that is expected from practitioners. Some IAM-related jobs also require specialized skills that go beyond IAM itself, such as management, cybersecurity, or other specialized technical skills.

Jobs that require more specialization from candidates usually pay dramatically more than ordinary IAM jobs. However, some jobs can also pay on the lower end of the pay scale. Therefore, you should do your research before entering the job market to ensure that you seek out jobs that maximize your earning potential.

Highest-Paying Countries for IAM Professionals

Digitalization has introduced a global job market where professionals are increasingly able to work across international borders. In general, major tech nations, such as the U.S., Western Europe, GCC states, and highly developed Asian countries, have jobs that pay higher salaries. On the other hand, nations with limited development offer much lower salaries for IAM professionals.

IAM Salary Trends

IAM salaries have grown modestly in recent years as the tech field experienced explosive growth. These high salaries are projected to be maintained for decades as businesses continue to rely on advanced data systems to improve their efficiency.

How Important Is an IAM Certification?

Getting an IAM certification is very important if you do not have formal education in IAM or would like to improve your standing in a competitive job market. Overall, almost any professional can benefit from obtaining an IAM certification as it will demonstrate one’s commitment to the industry and increasing knowledge. Identity Management Institute offers the leading IAM certifications for every job in the identity and access management field.

The Future of IAM

The field of IAM is projected to continue offering high-paying careers for professionals in the long term. A wide range of IAM jobs will continue to be available in the future, including data solutions specialists, IAM engineering roles, and solutions architect positions. Therefore, majoring in IAM can provide you with the opportunity to earn a high salary while enjoying additional opportunities in the future to achieve career advancement.