Swapity Self-hosts Using Our Physical Servers

 

Coinbase and other large exchanges utilize cloud-based server services from tech giants such as Amazon AWS and others. Again, we chose a more simple approach and made the decision from the beginning to have 100% control of our servers. This allows us to insure the exchange is always operating under optimal conditions and our own digital assets, particularly Swapity hot wallets, are safe from malicious hackers.

When a company uses cloud-based services there are many times when their processes are operating on shared hardware. This more complex environment creates many more opportunities for bad actors to find a crack in the armor and launch attacks of various kinds.

 

Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities can give hackers access to the servers and unmask user’s wallet addresses or other sensitive information. These attacks not only target the processors in servers but also leverage a vulnerability in individual computers’ processors. As of 2018, almost every computer system is affected by Spectre, including desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. Specifically, Spectre has been shown to work on Intel, AMD, ARM-based, and IBM processors.

Coinbase and other exchange operators are having to jump through lots of hoops to try and work with their cloud providers to make sure they mitigate these vulnerabilities. By physically controlling all of our own hardware we can sleep well at night knowing that we always have the latest security patches and operating system updates every day.