Challenges

The Unique Risk Landscape of Blockchain and Crypto

Operating in the crypto and blockchain space introduces security challenges that differ sharply from traditional industries. High-value transactions, decentralized finance models, and always-on environments create an ideal target for threat actors. Even brief exposures can lead to financial loss, reputational damage, or regulatory scrutiny.

This organization was growing fast and scaling across multiple environments. Security leaders faced increasing pressure to protect their infrastructure without slowing development or limiting agility. The stakes were high, and existing tools struggled to keep pace with the scale and complexity of the environment.

Blind spots in runtime activity left the team uncertain about what was happening inside containers and cloud services. Fragmented tools only added to the challenge, creating silos that slowed investigations and made response times longer than they needed to be. Compliance and audit requirements raised the stakes even further, since open source tools could not provide the level of visibility needed for assurance. At the same time, the threat landscape continued to evolve, with new risks emerging in runtime that demanded faster and more nuanced detection.

“We had solid defenses in the pipeline, but what kept me up at night was everything we couldn’t see in runtime.”

Head of Security, Cryptotrading Platform

When Shift Left Falls Short

Despite a strong DevSecOps foundation, the exposure that stemmed from an internal automation job bypassed all pre-deployment defenses. It surfaced in a Kubernetes pod during runtime, a place static tools were never designed to monitor. The incident underscored why relying only on early-stage defenses leaves gaps. Protection must extend into live environments where both attackers and risky internal behaviors operate.

Solutions

Runtime Threat Detection – Catching Issues in Real Time

The turning point came when unexpected shell activity was triggered by an internal database management tool inside a Kubernetes pod. No shift left tool could have flagged the issue ahead of time because it surfaced only once the system was running. While it did not involve a live wallet or attacker, the shell activity exposed credentials in a raw script and prompted immediate investigation.

Since Sysdig was already deployed for runtime threat detection, the platform surfaced the event as part of its standard container visibility. It captured the relevant shell activity and provided the context needed to investigate. With Sysdig’s runtime event capture, the team analyzed terminal access patterns, identified the exposed credentials, and traced them back to a scheduled job. This helped confirm the source and guide mitigation.

“Sysdig’s policies surfaced behavior we would not have flagged otherwise and helped us respond quickly.”

Head of Security, Cryptotrading Platform

The exposure was detected using Sysdig’s preconfigured runtime policies, requiring no custom rule definitions. This allowed the security team to gain immediate value from the platform’s out-of-the-box visibility into container behavior.

“Sysdig gave us the real time visibility we were missing with point-in-time scans,” the Head of Security said. “By leaning on runtime security, we caught a risky credential exposure early before it could reach production.”

Accelerated Response and Support

The security team began investigating shortly after the alert and confirmed that a credential was being exposed in staging. They rotated passwords for impacted systems and temporarily removed Sysdig agents to prevent further data collection until the issue was resolved. Sysdig support engaged within the first hour, and backend event purging was completed within 48 hours. From detection to internal validation, the team responded within 15 minutes.

Unlike typical external threats, this internal event underscored the unique value of runtime detection capabilities for unintended misconfigurations. The incident reinforced a core lesson. Visibility during runtime is a foundational layer of cloud defense, especially for exposures that only appear once systems are live.

Prioritizing Vulnerabilities in Runtime

The incident prompted a shift from broad vulnerability coverage to impact-driven triage. The company had been using traditional methods to manage vulnerabilities, relying on lengthy reports, manual routing, and generic prioritization based on static risk scores. Fixes often took weeks or months, and developers lacked context about which issues mattered most.

After the event, the security team leaned more heavily on Sysdig’s runtime insights. They shifted focus to vulnerabilities actively running in production rather than theoretical risks in the codebase.

“We stopped chasing theoretical risks and started solving real ones. Runtime insights gave our developers the context they needed to fix what posed real risk.”

Head of Security, Cryptotrading Platform

With automated workflows and actionable guidance, development teams received clear direction on what to fix and why. Remediation accelerated, and developer engagement improved as teams began working with a shared understanding of risk.

Compliance Made Continuous

For a crypto platform handling sensitive financial data and planning for global expansion, compliance is essential. The organization had already achieved key certifications and was working toward additional standards. Maintaining compliance in fast-moving environments, however, is difficult without immediate insight and continuous monitoring.

Sysdig’s runtime insights and policy controls made it possible to demonstrate proactive risk management across container, cloud, and Kubernetes environments. Posture reports that once took days to assemble became automated. Leadership dashboards provided real-time visibility into compliance posture, reducing reporting burdens and helping the security team focus on strategic priorities. Compliance shifted from a scramble at audit time to an ongoing outcome.

Identity and Access Aware Detection

The team also began addressing risks tied to identity and access. In crypto environments, attackers often aim to hijack computing resources or abuse overly permissive roles to escalate privileges. These actions are difficult to detect using traditional tools, especially in containerized environments.

Sysdig’s cloud detection and response capabilities enabled the team to identify risky behaviors such as the use of default service accounts, credential exposure risks in automated scripts, and internal tools with unnecessary root access. These insights were integrated into the broader detection strategy, giving the team real-time visibility into identity-driven threats as well as internal missteps.

The improvements to tooling were only part of the story. What changed most was the company’s approach to security. By focusing on runtime insights, security and engineering began working together with a shared view of risk. Instead of clearing backlogs, teams concentrated on exposures that mattered most, reducing noise and accelerating response.