Guarding Against Protocol Subversion at Coinbase

Presented at BSidesSF 2019, March 4, 2019, 11:45 a.m. (30 minutes)

As the number of blockchain assets and projects continues to increase, so too do the opportunities for attackers to exploit or trigger unstable asset behaviors, defined or otherwise. Given Coinbase's intention to support a large number of blockchain assets, Coinbase needs to take steps to ensure that all funds are properly safeguarded, regardless of any of malicious or disruptive activity on an asset network. Our initial efforts in this area have focused on Proof of Work blockchains and on Ethereum smart contracts. The talk will provide a high level overview of how Coinbase detects threats to these assets.

Presenters:

  • Mark Nesbitt - Coinbase
    Mark Nesbitt is a security engineer with Coinbase. Mark's responsibilities focus on security support for Coinbase's crypto engineering teams, which write services that integrate with cryptocurrency networks. Mark is also responsible for threat modeling and threat mitigations for the cryptocurrency assets supported by Coinbase.

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