Crypto ISAC Launches to Spearhead Ecosystem-Wide Security Initiatives

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May 29, 2024, 09:00 ET

Founding members of non-profit setting out to enhance trust and increase the adoption of blockchain technologies

AUSTIN, Texas, May 29, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today marks the official launch of the Crypto ISAC (Information Sharing and Analysis Center), a 501(c)(6) not-for-profit association of organizations dedicated to advancing security initiatives across the crypto ecosystem. With founding members including Aleo, Circle, Coinbase, Consensys, Evertas, Fireblocks, Hedera, Kraken, Offchain Labs, Red Balloon Security, Ribbit Capital, Solana Foundation, and Trail of Bits, Crypto ISAC will foster collaboration and information exchange among industry players.

The crypto industry faces ongoing threats of security breaches, highlighting the need for validated information sharing and coordinated security measures at an industry level. Crypto ISAC will focus on informing the ecosystem of security threats, resolving vulnerabilities, and sharing and implementing best practices for risk mitigation. By establishing greater confidence among industry stakeholders in the security, efficiency, and resiliency of crypto, Crypto ISAC aims to promote the widespread adoption of blockchain technologies.

"Mass adoption of crypto and other digital assets relies on wider public trust in their security," commented Justine Bone, Executive Director of Crypto ISAC. "We're proud to bring together the industry's top leaders on a mission to drive visibility and reliable action to today and tomorrow's evolving threats."

The Crypto ISAC will focus on five strategic objectives.

Building a Trusted Environment: Establishing a trusted environment for private industry players and government bodies to develop resilient global crypto asset and blockchain industries and to proactively prevent the abuse of web3 infrastructure
Sharing Unbiased Information: Serving as an impartial information broker, employing secure mechanisms and processes for the systematic and protected dissemination of information
Managing Quality of Information Dissemination: Increasing the timeliness, quality, and quantity of information distribution to ensure early notification of actual or potential incidents and supporting members in addressing security challenges
Encouraging Collaboration: Conducting collaborative threat analyzes to safeguard critical cryptoasset and blockchain infrastructure by providing contextual, relevant, and actionable information consistent with Crypto ISAC's best-in-class security standards
Ensuring Resiliency: Building agility and resiliency to changes in the threat landscape through empowering blockchain protocols to adapt to new technologies and evolving national and international crypto policies.

"Having worked at the intersection of cyber security, national security, and financial innovation throughout my time in the private and public sector, I know first hand the power of collaboration and info-sharing for unleashing the immense opportunity of financial technology in a safe and secure manner" said Sigal Mandelker, Ribbit Capital. "We could not be more proud to spearhead this initiative with a group of companies so committed to this vital mission."

The Crypto ISAC is spearheaded by a founding team with deep knowledge and specialized expertise in the crypto industry, each with a proven track record of developing robust algorithms and tailored solutions to security challenges. Additionally, committee representation from industry experts and government institutes ensures that all initiatives are aligned with industry best practices and regulations. To guarantee accurate and actionable insights into emerging vulnerabilities, all information inputted into the shared threat intelligence platform is vetted and validated by the membership team.

"Establishing a robust organization to combat security threats, misinformation, and operational threats is crucial to our mission of increasing economic freedom in the world," said Jeff Lunglhofer, Coinbase Chief Information Security Officer. "We are proud to join Crypto ISAC - and work with partners to foster heightened trust, security, and operational efficiency across the industry."

For more information about Crypto ISAC, or to get involved, visit: https://www.cryptoisac.org/

About Crypto ISAC
The Crypto ISAC is a member-driven, not-for-profit organization that works together to curb malicious actors, address vulnerabilities, share intelligence, and move security forward to protect the crypto ecosystem. We are founded by leading crypto organizations and designed for cryptosecurity experts to address the security and trust challenges that face crypto today and shape the crypto ecosystem of tomorrow.

About Aleo
Aleo is the first permissionless, programmable, privacy-preserving network in Web3, with application categories like digital identity, decentralized finance, and privacy-preserving machine learning. Aleo is zero-knowledge by design and the only full-stack Layer 1 blockchain integrating ZK at every level. Aleo envisions zero-knowledge as a cornerstone of the future internet. Our technology allows developers to build a private web experience powered by cryptography.

About Circle
Circle is a global financial technology firm that enables businesses of all sizes to harness the power of digital currencies and public blockchains for payments, commerce and financial applications worldwide. Circle is the issuer of USDC and EURC - highly liquid, interoperable, and trusted money protocols on the internet. Circle's open and programmable platform and APIs make it easy for organizations to run their internet-scale business, whether it is making international payments, building globally-accessible Web3 apps or managing their internal treasury. Learn more at https://circle.com.

About Coinbase
Crypto creates economic freedom by ensuring that people can participate fairly in the economy, and Coinbase is on a mission to increase economic freedom for more than 1 billion people. We're updating the century-old financial system by providing a trusted platform that makes it easy for people and institutions to engage with crypto assets, including trading, staking, safekeeping, spending, and fast, free global transfers. We also provide critical infrastructure for onchain activity and support builders who share our vision that onchain is the new online. And together with the crypto community, we advocate for responsible rules to make the benefits of crypto available around the world.

About Consensys
Consensys is the leading blockchain and web3 software company. Since 2014, Consensys has been at the forefront of innovation, pioneering technological developments within the web3 ecosystem. Through our product suite, including the MetaMask platform, Infura, Linea, Diligence, and our NFT toolkit Phosphor, we have become the trusted collaborator for users, creators, and developers on their path to build and belong in the world they want to see. Whether building a dapp, an NFT collection, a portfolio, or a better future, the instinct to build is universal. Consensys inspires and champions the builder instinct in everyone by making web3 universally easy to use and develop on. To explore our products and solutions, visit https://consensys.io/.

About Evertas
Evertas Inc. is a Florida-based insurance company focused on covering the full spectrum of risks for institutional holders of cryptoassets and blockchain technology including exchanges, custodians, traditional financial institutions, funds, family offices, corporations, miners, ultra-high net worth individuals, and artificial intelligence data operators. Licensed to operate as a Class 3A Insurer by the Bermuda Monetary Authority, Evertas was founded in 2017 by CEO J. Gdanski and President Raymond Zenkich.

About Fireblocks
Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves thousands of financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $4 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage and transit. Some of the biggest trading desks have switched to Fireblocks because it's the only solution that CISOs and Ops Teams both love. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com.

About Hedera
Hedera is an open-source, leaderless proof-of-stake network. Hedera's robust ecosystem is built by a global community, on a network governed by a diverse council of industry-leading organizations, including abrdn, Avery Dennison, Boeing, Chainlink Labs, COFRA Holdings, DBS Bank, Dell, Dentons, Deutsche Telekom, DLA Piper, EDF (Électricité de France), eftpos, FIS (WorldPay), Google, Hitachi America Ltd., IBM, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), LG Electronics, The London School of Economics (LSE), Magalu, Nomura Holdings, ServiceNow, Shinhan Bank, Standard Bank Group, Swirlds, Tata Communications, Ubisoft, University College London (UCL), Wipro, and Zain Group. For more information, visit www.hedera.com.

About Kraken
Kraken is one of the world's longest-standing and most secure crypto platforms. Our mission is to accelerate the global adoption of crypto, so that everyone can achieve financial freedom and inclusion. Globally, Kraken clients trade more than 200 digital assets and 6 different national currencies, including GBP, EUR, USD, CAD, CHF, and AUD. Founded in 2011, Kraken was among the first to offer spot trading with margin, parachain auctions, staking, regulated derivatives and index services under one roof. Trusted by over 11 million individuals, traders and institutions around the world, Kraken offers professional 24/7/365 client support along with one of the fastest, most performant trading platforms available. Kraken has set the industry standard for transparency and client trust, and was the first crypto platform to conduct Proof of Reserves.

About Offchain Labs
Offchain Labs is a venture-backed, Princeton-founded company that has dedicated over five years to blockchain research and development. As the original contributors to Arbitrum, Offchain Labs has been instrumental in revolutionizing the industry through this leading network scaling solutions. The team continues to build upon this foundation by innovating and enhancing products such as Prysm, Arbitrum Orbit, Stylus, and Arbitrum Nitro. In October 2022, Offchain Labs acquired Prysmatic Labs, the leading consensus client for Ethereum, further cementing Offchain Labs' alignment with Ethereum.

About Red Balloon Security
Red Balloon Security is a leading cybersecurity provider and research firm that specializes in the protection of embedded devices across all industries. Red Balloon Security's pioneering R&D is led by a team of world-class academic researchers and developers who have published seminal research papers in the fields of embedded security and intrusion detection, led U.S. Department of Defense-funded research activities, worked closely with Fortune 500 companies, ethically disclosed vulnerabilities within hundreds of millions of ubiquitous embedded devices, and worked as embedded security researchers within various intelligence agencies.

About Ribbit Capital
Ribbit Capital is a global investment firm focused on the intersection of financial services and technology. Founded in 2012, Ribbit Capital's mission is to change the world of finance by providing capital and guidance to visionary financial services entrepreneurs around the world. Ribbit Capital's portfolio consists of more than 120 private and public company investments across six continents and a multitude of sectors within financial services, including payments, personal finance, investments and wealth, lending, insurance, cryptoassets, financial infrastructure, financial software, and home finance. For more information, visit https://ribbitcap.com/

About Solana Foundation
The Solana Foundation is a non-profit foundation based in Zug, Switzerland, dedicated to the decentralization, adoption, and security of the Solana network. For more information, please visit https://solana.org/.

About Trail of Bits
Trail of Bits is a leading cybersecurity consulting firm that provides advanced security solutions and services. With a strong focus on research-driven methodologies, Trail of Bits helps organizations of all sizes and industries safeguard their digital assets. Leveraging a team of world-class security experts, the company specializes in software assurance, cryptographic research, and security engineering, among other areas. Trail of Bits was among the first to transition from Web 2.0 to blockchain technologies, becoming experts in all facets of blockchain applications, from smart contracts to off-chain components. Our resources include the "Building Secure Contracts" guidebook for secure smart contract development, the "Automated Testing Handbook" for optimizing static and dynamic security analysis tools, and "Crytic Properties" with 168 reusable security properties for various ERC standards. The "Rekt Test" helps teams assess security posture and measure progress. We develop and use industry-leading tools such as Echidna (smart contract fuzzing), Slither (static analysis), Medusa (next-gen smart contract fuzzer), and Attacknet (chaos testing for blockchain nodes). Our services cover early-stage security reviews, comprehensive code assessments, business logic analysis, L1/L2 node reviews, bridge reviews, and automated tools integration. We also specialize in cryptographic services involving zero-knowledge and multiparty computation, and have incorporated this expertise into publicly available tools like Circomspect (Circom), Amarna (Cairo), and Caracal (Starknet). For more information, visit www.trailofbits.com.

Contact: [email protected]

SOURCE Crypto ISAC