Halborn: ethical blockchain hackers.
According to SlowMist, the crypto industry lost $3.78 billion in 2022 due to security issues, which is 61% less than the 2021 numbers. Such a decline might be attributed to the strengthening of the positions of cybersecurity companies.
The Halborn project, founded in 2019 by Steven Walbroehl and Rob Behnke, two "white hat hackers" (hackers who work with developers of blockchain protocols to detect potential vulnerabilities), saw increased demand for its services last year.
Halborn works to ensure the security of blockchains, blockchain-based applications, and related products. Among the organizations that have confirmed the company's qualifications are Amazon Web Services and CISSP. Halborn's professionalism can also be evidenced by awards at SANS Grid NetWars, EOS SF Hackathon, and Wyoming Blockchain Hackathon.
Over several years of hard work, the development team has gained the trust of many customers, including well-known names. Coinbase, BlockFi, Ava Labs, SushiSwap, Polygon, and Solana are a few examples. The company is collaborating with Nike, BNY Mellon, and Amazon to educate partners on cryptocurrency security. It also advises banks on the risks associated with crypto projects.
Halborn's home page
What services does Halborn offer?
Testing
Testing refers to simulating attacks to detect problems or weaknesses to fix flaws before hackers exploit them. Not only blockchains are being tested, but also cross-chain bridges, crypto wallets, dApps (decentralized applications), and cloud storage platforms.
Smart contract audits
Checking the smart contract code enables you to identify critical vulnerabilities, fix errors in the code, and determine the system's overall security. It must be carried out before launching the product on the main network. Analysis can be done either automatically or manually. Halborn specializes in blockchains such as Ethereum, Substrate, Solana, CosmWasm, Terra, Cosmos Tendermint, and NEAR.
Development and automation
A comprehensive service for developing a web application and subsequent security system automation, which includes:
?️ CI/CD. It combines the development, testing, and deployment of an application;
?️ building a code infrastructure;
?️ DevSecOps. Security testing at every stage of the application development process;
?️ cloud deployment;
?️SAST/DAST integration. Security testing methods. SAST involves code analyses in the early stages of development, while DAST involves code analyses in the later stages.
Security advisory
Halborn offers advisory services to businesses, outlining the key areas on which they should focus to be as secure against cyberattacks as possible. The service package includes code and security system evaluation, smart contract audit, practical recommendations, and testing.
In addition to all of the above, the company created its own educational program on the security of blockchains and smart contracts at the SANS Institute.
Halborn's success in 2022
In July, Halborn raised $90 million in a funding round. The first round was led by American private equity firm Summit Partners. Castle Island Ventures, Brevan Howard, and Digital Currency Group also contributed to the development of the project.
A month before, the Halborn development team discovered a vulnerability in many browser extension cryptocurrency wallets, including the popular MetaMask. The problem affected a small category of users and concerned seed phrases. In certain cases, the web wallet recovery phrase could be extracted from the hard drive of a compromised computer. After that, MetaMask updated its crypto wallet Extension to version 10.11.3 in order to fix the flaw. Halborn received $50,000 as a reward for discovering the flaw.
