Japan’s National Police Agency Says $540 Million in Crypto Hacking Losses Registered in 2018

Japan Registered $540 Million Losses Due to Crypto Hacks in 2018

Japan is one of the most active and important countries in the cryptocurrency world. Furthermore, it has several companies working around virtual currencies and distributed ledger technology (DLT). However, the country has lost millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency during the first half of 2018.

According to a report released by The Asahi Shimbun on Thursday, informs that the National Police Agency (NPA) reported 158 cyber attacks. As per the NPA, hackers were able to steal 60.503 billion yen – over $540 million dollars.

The majority of the attacks were related to hackers stealing virtual currencies from exchanges. For example, at the beginning of the year, the crypto exchange Coincheck was attacked losing more than 500 million NEM coins valued at around $500 million dollars. This, perhaps, has been the biggest hack in the last years.

According to the report, $22 million dollar has been stolen from individuals and their crypto wallets. Most of the times, users were using the same ID and password to secure their email account and their crypto savings.

It is also important to mention that those users that have hardware wallets have less chances of being attacked than those that store their funds in online wallets or crypto exchanges.

The attack suffered by Coincheck and its users has been the biggest, accounting for more than 90% of the total funds lost during the first 6 months of the year.

After this situation and a few other inconsistencies in crypto exchanges, the Financial Services Agency (FSA) in the country decided to impose different regulations. Exchanges had to be compliant with strong Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti Money Laundering (AML) policies. Additionally, they would also have to provide information about the funds that they store, the security procedures they take to protect users’ funds and many other things.

76% of the cases were reported between January and March. After all the measures taken by the FSA, the number of thefts dropped substantially. Since then, only 38 cases have been reported.

This is quite important since it shows that proper and clear regulations help protect investors and market participants. A better and more secure cryptocurrency environment is better for the whole ecosystem.