NSFSaTC-BSF: CORE: Small: Examining the Impact of Cybersecurity Shocks on Cryptocurrency Platforms

加密货币平台为比特币和其他新兴加密货币的交易、货币兑换、支付和其他先进金融工具提供便利。尽管在过去的几年里有了爆炸式的创新，但频繁的安全漏洞威胁着这些新技术的可行性。该项目研究网络安全冲击如何影响加密货币平台的运营。它有三个主要部分。首先，该项目收集了大量关于平台安全冲击的纵向数据，例如分布式拒绝服务攻击、公开宣布的安全漏洞和计划外中断。这些数据正在与公开的平台运营数据相结合，例如交易量变化、汇率波动和货币兑换市场份额。其目的是衡量这些冲击对更广泛的生态系统的影响。其次，该项目旨在确定恶意行为者从安全冲击中获利的机会，量化滥用的可能程度，并确定已经采取恶意行动的案例。第三，该项目旨在建立冲击概率的经验模型，并确定影响冲击发生的因素，从平台规模到安全卫生。该项目通过强调对现实世界威胁的实证分析，为新兴的网络安全科学做出了贡献。通过将这些平台上的安全冲击的测量与这些冲击如何影响操作的数据相结合，这项研究有可能确定几种新的基于金融动机的加密货币攻击类别。例如，通过跟踪多个货币交易，调查人员可以精确地量化不安全的负面溢出效应，这是以前研究信息安全经济学的研究人员经常无法做到的。此外，这些新平台所采用的前所未有的透明度可以使研究人员更多地了解攻击的影响，而不是研究传统金融市场的网络安全威胁。此外，研究结果将通过量化不同冲击的不利影响来帮助监管机构和交易所运营商，甚至可能产生远远超出加密货币平台的教训，并有助于保护更广泛的金融体系免受不利影响。

Cryptocurrency platforms facilitate trade, currency exchange, payments and other advanced financial instruments for Bitcoin and other emerging cryptocurrencies. Although there has been an explosion of innovation over the past several years, frequent security lapses threaten the viability of these new technologies. This project investigates how cybersecurity shocks affect the operation of cryptocurrency platforms. It has three main parts. First, the project collects extensive longitudinal data on security shocks to the platforms, such as distributed denial of service attacks, publicly announced security breaches, and unplanned outages. These data are being combined with publicly available data on platform operations, such as changes to trading volume, exchange rate fluctuation, and currency exchange market share. The purpose is to measure any impact the shocks have on the wider ecosystem. Second, the project seeks to identify opportunities for malevolent actors to profit from security shocks, to quantify the extent to which abuse is possible, and to identify cases where malicious actions have been taken. Third, the project seeks to develop empirical models of the probability of shocks and identify what factors, ranging from platform size to security hygiene, affect the occurrence of shocks.This project contributes to the nascent science of cybersecurity by emphasizing empirical analysis of real-world threats. By combining measurement of security shocks on these platforms with data on how these shocks impact operations, this research has the potential to identify several new categories of financially-motivated attacks on cryptocurrencies. For instance, by tracking multiple currency exchanges, the investigators can precisely quantify the negative spillover effects of insecurity, something that has frequently eluded prior researchers studying the economics of information security. Also, the unprecedented level of transparency adopted by these new platforms could enable the researchers to learn more about the impact of attacks than is possible when studying cybersecurity threats in traditional financial markets. Moreover, the findings will aid regulators and exchange operators by quantifying adverse impacts of different shocks, and potentially even yield lessons far beyond cryptocurrency platforms, and help protect the broader financial system from adverse contagion.