SlowMist Founder Cos was interviewed by Bloomberg Businessweek: Security Is a Long-Term Battle

In the September cover story of Bloomberg Businessweek, The Ongoing Confrontation in Blockchain Security, SlowMist founder Cos shared his long-term perspective on blockchain security: security is not a one-time inspection but a prolonged war that requires sustained investment.

Security Is a Long-Term Battle

Every day, SlowMist receives urgent requests from around the globe: hacking attacks, leaked private keys, illicit funds entering wallets… Victims reach out through email or social media for help. The team must quickly analyze transaction paths, asset flows, and attack methods, attempting to find opportunities for freezing or tracing funds before they are fully transferred and laundered.

“People have inertia — many believe problems won’t happen to them, until their assets are stolen and they come seeking help,” Cos reflects. SlowMist’s role is to help users grasp at a lifeline in desperate situations. But he stresses that security must never be understood simply as a one-off “project audit” or “emergency trace.” True protection is a holistic system — a dynamic process that spans prevention, active defense, and post-incident response.In practice, SlowMist breaks this process down into multiple stages:

Before incidents: security audits, security training, etc.
During incidents: on-chain monitoring, real-time detection of malicious behavior.
After incidents: tracing and attribution, emergency response, judicial forensics support.

Within this framework, SlowMist’s security products and services have gradually formed a closed loop. The report highlights several key tools:

MistTrack: SlowMist’s proprietary on-chain analysis and anti-money laundering tool, capable of tracking hacker fund flows, identifying risky addresses, and supporting compliance checks for users and enterprises.
MistEye: A Web3 threat intelligence and dynamic security monitoring system, designed to detect potential attacks in real time and provide alerts and protection for projects and exchanges.
InMist Lab: A threat intelligence collaboration network led by SlowMist, uniting global security teams, exchanges, and researchers.

Together, these tools enable SlowMist to quickly determine the root cause of stolen funds — whether phishing, private key leakage, or smart contract vulnerabilities — and attempt to block laundering routes before attackers succeed. In the first half of 2025 alone, supported by the InMist Lab network, SlowMist helped clients, partners, and several public cases freeze and recover approximately $14.56 million.

However, the report also acknowledges the harsh reality. Cos stated bluntly in the interview: the vast majority of victims are already mentally prepared for the fact that “the money won’t come back.” What they want most is the truth. Data shows that of 410 blockchain security incidents worldwide in 2024, only 24 managed to recover even partial funds, accounting for just 8.25% of total losses.

“Freezing does not equal recovery,” Cos explains. Security companies can only play the role of “technical intermediaries.” True freezing and restitution depend on law enforcement agencies, judicial processes, and the compliance mechanisms of exchanges. From freezing to return, multiple parties must provide trust and cooperation; if any link breaks, the effort can fail. This is why SlowMist continually stresses the value of its threat intelligence collaboration network. The security industry has never been about fighting alone. A single company cannot counter increasingly complex hacker activity. Only through collective participation — from communities, exchanges, regulators, and judicial authorities — can true security strength be formed.

Productization and Compliance Strategy

Beyond rescue cases, Bloomberg Businessweek also examined SlowMist’s business model. As a security company, SlowMist must maintain professionalism while ensuring sustainable development. “Even if security experts worked day and night auditing projects, they could only handle five per month at most. That’s the capacity ceiling,” Cos admits. As a result, SlowMist prefers to carefully select quality clients — particularly overseas clients who truly value security and are willing to pay for professional services.

At the same time, SlowMist has built a product-driven strategy, launching SaaS tools such as MistTrack. Since its release in 2022, MistTrack has accumulated more than 100,000 users, including tens of thousands of paying customers. This dual engine of products and services enables SlowMist to maintain frontline emergency capacity while achieving stable long-term revenue.

The report also highlighted SlowMist’s business plans in Hong Kong: providing regulatory authorities with technical assistance in handling theft cases and offering security services to institutions applying for stablecoin licenses. Recently, SlowMist also became a founding member of the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Council (DAAMC), established under the Hong Kong Virtual Assets Industry Association (HKVAIA), to advance compliant stablecoin issuance and financial integrity.

“If things are too open from the start, there could be huge governance challenges later,” Cos points out. What the public truly cares about is not the on-chain movement of every USDT, but whether there is genuine reserve backing. This may require authoritative institutions — akin to the Big Four auditors — to provide trust and assurance.

Conclusion

Appearing in Bloomberg Businessweek is both recognition of SlowMist’s years of dedication and international acknowledgment of its vision. As Cos says: “We don’t have dedicated sales staff — I myself am the business developer.” Behind this candor lies SlowMist’s persistence and conviction in the essence of security.Whether as “blockchain firefighters” or as builders of industry governance, SlowMist has remained deeply committed to the security track. Looking ahead, SlowMist will continue to work with the community, industry partners, and regulators to jointly promote security and compliance across the blockchain world.

Full article: https://article.bbwhk.net/article/2025/09/09/185127127.html

About SlowMist

SlowMist is a blockchain security firm established in January 2018. The firm was started by a team with over ten years of network security experience to become a global force. Our goal is to make the blockchain ecosystem as secure as possible for everyone. We are now a renowned international blockchain security firm that has worked on various well-known projects such as HashKey Exchange, OSL, MEEX, BGE, BTCBOX, Bitget, BHEX.SG, OKX, Binance, HTX, Amber Group, Crypto.com, etc.

SlowMist offers a variety of services that include but are not limited to security audits, threat information, defense deployment, security consultants, and other security-related services. We also offer AML (Anti-money laundering) software, MistEye (Security Monitoring) , SlowMist Hacked (Crypto hack archives), FireWall.x (Smart contract firewall) and other SaaS products. We have partnerships with domestic and international firms such as Akamai, BitDefender, RC², TianJi Partners, IPIP, etc. Our extensive work in cryptocurrency crime investigations has been cited by international organizations and government bodies, including the United Nations Security Council and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

By delivering a comprehensive security solution customized to individual projects, we can identify risks and prevent them from occurring. Our team was able to find and publish several high-risk blockchain security flaws. By doing so, we could spread awareness and raise the security standards in the blockchain ecosystem.