5 Essential Security Features of a Cryptocurrency Exchange

When it comes to building cryptocurrency exchange software, security is of paramount importance. Weak security attracts malicious activities of hackers and crypto exchanges often fall prey to cyber-attacks. Binance, one of the popular crypto exchanges, got hacked in May 2019, leading to a loss of 7000 BTC.

Therefore, it is crucial to enhance the security of a crypto exchange. The following six security features can help fortify the security of the exchange.

• Registry lock

Registry lock adds an additional layer of security to crypto transactions. It prevents unauthenticated access to users’ accounts. The framework of the registry lock stops hackers from modifying the details of the registration account.

This attribute is well serviced by web service providers such as VeriSign to enable software platforms to enhance the security of the exchange. In this, when an authenticated user makes an attempt to update a user’s details, it goes through a three-layer passphrase, making it impossible for hackers to barge in.

• Use of DNSSEC 

DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extension) is used to secure the information provided by the Domain Name System (DNS). It works on the combination of private signatures and public keys to authenticate a particular transaction. DNSSEC works very cautiously and ensures diligent matching of signatures before validating a transaction. It directly rejects the unauthorized DNS entries and prevents the activities of cache poisoning in crypto exchange software.  

• Check the security of your web protocol

Your cryptocurrency exchange should be well integrated with the following web protocols:

• HSTS (HTTP-Strict-Transport-Security) to ensure all of the browsing sessions have HTTPS protocols.
• X-Frame-Options header to eliminate click-jacking attacks. It will also keep your content safe and protected from being plagiarized.
• X-Content-Type-Options to prevent code injection and XSS and attacks.
• CSP (Content-Security-Policy) to reduce the XSS attack risks.
• X-XSS-Protection to protect crypto exchange users from cross-site scripting attacks.

• Use of hardware security modules

HSM (Hardware Security Module) is a physical device in the form of a plug-in card or an external computing device that can be connected with the network. It is a trustworthy network computer which performs the task of cryptography. This device consists of cryptoprocessor chips that mitigate the channel attack and bus probing.  

HSM is trusted because it:

• is built on the top of specialized hardware
• has security-focused OS
• is governed by internal rules and regulation
• works best to protect cryptographic information

• Prevent DDoS attacks

DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attack is a situation where a network program becomes unavailable to the users temporarily. It is mostly done by malicious activities that disrupt the normal traffic and flood the network with heavy bogus.

Recently, many cryptocurrency exchanges have become the victim of DDoS attack and precautionary steps should be taken to enhance the security of cryptocurrency exchange software. In 2018, Bitfinex was attacked with DDoS and therefore, they had to suspend their trading activities for a time-being.

To effectively prevent the DDoS attack, you should configure your cryptocurrency exchange to drop incoming ICMP packets or block outside DNS responses. You can also have anti-DDoS software and hardware modules in your crypto exchange.

Antier Solutions is a leading cryptocurrency exchange software development company with over 5 years of experience in building feature-rich crypto exchange solutions. Our domain-specific experts are enriched with practical knowledge and have an upper hand in building secure cryptocurrency exchanges. We specialize in delivering white label crypto exchange and can also build a custom exchange for you from scratch.

Schedule a free demo of our white label crypto exchange or connect with our subject matter experts to share your business needs.