Digital intelligence firm Cellebrite has launched its “Cellebrite Crypto Tracer” solution. The new offering is powered by CipherTrace and aims to trace illicit cryptocurrencies involved in money laundering, terrorism, drugs, human trafficking, weapon sales and ransomware schemes. The suite of tools will be available to investigators, analysts and non-technical agents who want to lawfully obtain evidence and trace criminals who use cryptos like Bitcoin (BTC) through the darknet. Citing figures from an Oxford University study, Cellebrite states that an estimated $76 billion worth of illegal activities involve Bitcoin. Curating millions of information references to trace transactions The Cellebrite Crypto Tracer …
South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb has conducted a professional external audit of its funds after a major hack last month, the company confirmed in a statement on April 11. Bithumb, South Korea’s largest exchange, lost around 14 billion won ($13 million) two weeks ago in an event executives believe was masterminded by an insider. Now, Bithumb has used a third party to assess its reserves, repeating its previous assurances that customer funds remained safe in cold storage wallets. The 14 billion of hacked EOS (EOS) tokens, a previous statement said, represented company-only funds. All remaining funds in its hot wallet …
Ukraine’s Cyber Police have arrested a man who allegedly placed crypto mining malware scripts on his own websites, local law enforcement reported on March 26. The cyber crime unit of the national police of Ukraine arrested a 32-year-old man from the Bukovina region who allegedly placed cryptojacking software on a number of educational websites that he created and administered. The unspecified websites and internet resources had 1.5 million monthly visitors, the police reported. The police also stated that the installed malware on the websites was deploying visitors’ devices’ CPU and GPU power to illegally mine cryptocurrencies. The authority has conducted …
North Korean crypto hackers siphoned off nearly $400 million in crypto through cyber attacks in 2021 according to new data from Chainalysis. The type of crypto stolen has also seen a sea change according to the Jan. 13 report from the blockchain analytics firm. In 2017, BTC accounted for nearly all the crypto stolen by the DPRK, but it now accounts for just one fifth: “In 2021, only 20% of the stolen funds were Bitcoin, whereas 22% were either ERC-20 tokens or altcoins. And for the first time ever, Ether accounted for a majority of the funds stolen at 58%.” …
Cross-chain bridges have increasingly become targeted by malicious entities. However, not all hackers can run away with millions in their exploit attempts. Some end up losing money from their own wallets. In a Twitter thread, Alex Shevchenko, the CEO of Aurora Labs, told the story of a hacker who attempted to exploit the Rainbow Bridge but ended up losing 5 Ether (ETH), worth around $8,000 at the time of writing. According to Shevchenko, the hacker has presented a falsified NEAR block to the Rainbow Bridge contract and submitted the required 5 ETH safe deposit. Thinking that the team would be …