Security Month at Status

Status is a decentralized organization that works on creating decentralized products for the Ethereum ecosystem. This combination introduces a drastically new paradigm for what “security” is. Instead of the traditional methodology of focusing on centralized, localized, highly-control networks and devices, we minimize such a thing and whatever infrastructure does exist lives in the cloud.

What does this mean?

In much the same way we’ve decentralized the organization and applications, we’ve done the same for security.

It means the vast majority of the attack surface is you, the people that contribute. Furthermore, the control and information a security specialist has in terms of making decisions and monitoring how things are run is severely constrained.

It also means education becomes more importance across the organization, and personal responsibility of quality security practices become paramount. It is up to each of us to understand potential threats, take preventative measures, and report any issues we come across to the security team to protect the organization as a whole.

How It Works

MyCrypto is leading the way with this. We are going to follow and participate.

Corey spends a lot of time talking with their team, and they are the original creators of the checklist referenced in the original security week post.

MyCrypto are doing an actionable personal security tip each day of December, with mini guides on how to make your personal practices more robust. These are broken up from the massive checklist they already created so they are not too daunting.

We will follow the tips they tweet, and do them ourselves. If you have problems / comments / concerns / suggestions / etc around a given tip, or just need help getting it done, then you can write to:

• #security-helpdesk in status
• security@status.im

There will be no judgement in either of those places. They are for getting help and resolving issues.

This should get us to a good start across the company in a way that is digestible, which then will be supplemented each subsequent week through guides we write on other topics that are important.

It is encouraged to share and tweet out these tips, as they help anyone on the internet, not just Status.