Avalanche and Blockaid have joined forces in a new partnership to embed Blockaid’s cutting-edge security features directly into Avalanche’s Core wallet, the primary wallet for the blockchain network.
The primary goal of this security enhancement is to combat the escalating threat of phishing scams and hacks in the decentralized finance sector. By cross-referencing transactions with Blockaid’s extensive database of known malicious threats, users will receive an alert if any suspicious activity is detected before finalizing the transaction. This innovative security measure is commonly referred to as transaction simulation.
Blockaid boasts a track record of fending off 1.3 million attacks and is currently the trusted security solution for platforms like OpenSea, MetaMask, Zerion, Coinbase, and Rainbow.
In response to this collaboration, Akash Gupta, the head of consumer products at Ava Labs, expressed his enthusiasm.
Critics of Blockaid have raised concerns about the potential for false positives generated by the security screening. Blockaid, however, views this as a deliberate feature rather than a flaw in their software. The company argues that a few false positives are a small price to pay in comparison to the alternative of compromising security measures and allowing malicious actors to exploit vulnerabilities. Out of a staggering 165,000,000 transactions processed monthly through Blockaid, only a minuscule 0.0002% are identified as false positives, while millions of genuinely fraudulent transactions are successfully blocked.
Despite the robust security measures in place, there remains a looming threat from cybercriminals who continuously strive to outsmart transaction simulators like Blockaid. Cybersecurity expert Bernhard Mueller warns of malware like the notorious “Angel Drainer” that could potentially circumvent the security layers provided by transaction simulators by utilizing dynamic, unmarked contract addresses to steal funds. However, Mueller’s tests using this method were unsuccessful, as Blockaid promptly flagged the transaction as suspicious and issued a warning.
Update (June 6, 15:30 UTC): This article has been revised to include the false positive rate of 0.0002% from 165,000,000 transactions per month.