Stay ahead of cyber risk with proactive security strategies that reduce exposure and meet regulatory expectations

Digital asset cybersecurity

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Overview

Organizations are leveraging blockchain ecosystems to unlock new business models and enhance transparency. Yet, innovation brings risk, cyber threats targeting digital assets can result in financial loss, reputational damage, and regulatory non-compliance.

PwC helps organizations secure their digital asset journey end-to-end, combining deep cybersecurity expertise with blockchain-specific risk management.

Why cybersecurity for digital assets matters

Digital assets represent value, identity, and trust in decentralized networks. As adoption accelerates, cybersecurity is not optional — it is foundational to resilience and compliance.

How PwC can help

Cybersecurity Risk Assessment: Evaluate an organization’s digital asset-related risks across blockchain infrastructure, smart contracts, decentralized applications (dApps), wallets, and custody solutions.
Fraud Risk and Controls Assessment: Deliver use case-specific coverage of fraud risk and security controls, with actionable recommendations and right-sized implementation roadmaps.

IAM Program Design: Design and implement identity and access management (IAM) across blockchain entities, issuers, users, custodians, validators, and Signers enforcing least-privilege and segregation of duties.
Phishing-Resistant MFA: Implement phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication for privileged access and blockchain customer authentication use cases.
Smart Contract Access Controls: Define and enforce account-level role requirements and onchain execution criteria for smart contract interactions.
Role-Based Access and SoD: Develop role-based and attribute-based access controls with segregation of duties (SoD) frameworks for high-risk transactions.

Blockchain Security Monitoring: Establish or enhance continuous security monitoring programs tailored to blockchain network activity and threat patterns.
Crypto Threat Intelligence: Integrate crypto-focused threat intelligence and develop incident management programs and threat models aligned to the organization’s digital asset ecosystem.

Resilience Strategy and Playbooks: Design operational resilience strategies and response playbooks to defend against cyberattacks targeting blockchain ecosystems.
Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity: Develop disaster recovery plans, secure private key and wallet backup protocols, and business continuity frameworks for decentralized environments.
Resilience Testing: Conduct simulated attack scenarios and recovery drills to validate and stress-test organizational resilience.

Penetration Testing: Conduct vulnerability assessments and penetration testing across digital asset environments, including smart contract audits, blockchain node testing, and wallet and API scans.
Red Team Exercises: Execute adversarial red team exercises to surface exploitable vulnerabilities and drive targeted remediation.

Privacy Risk Assessment: Review existing architecture to identify privacy risks and design gaps including PII exposure on public blockchains, wallet address linking, data minimization, and cross-border data flows — mapped to applicable regulatory requirements.
Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA/DPIA) Framework: Develop a standardized PIA/DPIA process covering initiation through finalization, documenting legal basis, risks, mitigation strategies, and residual exposure with stakeholder input.

Contact us

Christopher Duffy

Principal, Cyber, Data and Tech Risk, PwC US

Kelly Kitsch

Principal, PwC US

Jennifer Kamrowski

Cybersecurity Principal, PwC US

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