Cyber threat intelligence firm Digital Shadows has discovered over 100 fake domains registered relating to Facebook’s forthcoming stablecoin Libra, the Independent reported on July 1 As of June 19, researchers at Digital Shadows had found over 100 domains registered relating to Libra and several dozen referring to the associated digital wallet Calibra, with some of them containing malicious content. The firm divided the websites into two groups — those impersonating Libra’s official website, and those promoting scams. “Instead of relying on media buzz and hype around the brand, these types of scams instead aim to convince victims that they are …

Facebook has removed ads for a bitcoin (BTC) scam that masqueraded as posts by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, UAE news site The National reports on June 30 According to the report, a recent scam on social media — dubbed “Bitcoin Loophole” — claimed that Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, personally endorsed a scheme that guaranteed riches within a week through bitcoin trading. The social media giant reportedly deleted the fraudulent posts after thousands of investors handed over personal information and money to criminals based in Ukraine …

Ireland-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitsane has apparently vanished, taking as many as 246,000 users’ crypto deposits with it. The news was reported by Forbes on June 27. Launched in 2016, Dublin-registered Bitsane LP was formerly listed as one of Ripple’s approved exchanges — a January 2018 CNBC article had also pitched the exchange as an option for investors seeking to trade XRP ahead of its listing on major platforms such as Coinbase. According to Forbes, user withdrawals on Bitsane began faltering in May of this year, with allegedly technical reasons cited as the reason for their temporary disabling. By June 17, …

Hackers took over the Twitter account of the largest supermarket chain in the United Kingdom to promote a bitcoin (BTC) scam this week. The news surfaced via IT magazine Bleeping Computer on June 25. Tesco, which has almost 550,000 Twitter followers, lost control of its account and began claiming it would give away free bitcoins in return for investments. The hackers appeared to have an affinity with Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, using his avatar and changing Tesco’s handle to ‘Billgatesmsc.’ “Bitcoin is on the rise again! One day, it will without doubt replace fiat currencies,” one deleted tweet read in …

Europol, in conjunction with the United Kingdom’s South West Regional Cyber Crime Unit, the Dutch police, Eurojust, and the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA), has coordinated the arrests of six people suspected of stealing over $27 million in cryptocurrency, according to a press release on June 25. The attackers reportedly were involved in typosquatting, a fraudulent means to steal credentials by setting up a scam website with a similar name to an established one—hence the “typo” in “typosquatting”—and then recording login data. In this case, the report notes that Europol believes the hackers were able to use typosquatting to steal …

46-year-old New York resident Patrick McDonnell admitted to stealing funds obtained from his clients instead of investing them in cryptocurrency, Bloomberg reports on June 21. Per the report, McDonnell — who calls himself the “coyote of Wall Street” — pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Friday in federal court in Brooklyn. He allegedly declared: “I claimed to invest it in virtual currency and spent it on personal expenses.” McDonnell attracted investors to his firm CabbageTech by claiming on social media to have traded over $50 million worth of bitcoin (BTC) for thousands of clients. Bloomberg reports that, instead of investing …

The city council of Riviera Beach, Florida has agreed to pay nearly $600,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) to regain access to data encrypted in a hacker attack, the New York Times reported on June 19. On May 29, the city experienced “a data security event” when a police department employee opened an allegedly infected email attachment, which eventually resulted in the online system breakdown. The hackers allegedly encrypted government records, blocking access to critical information and leaving the city without an ability to accept utility payments other than in person or by regular mail. A city spokeswoman, Rose Anne Brown …

The recent Firefox’s zero-day security flaw was used in attacks against major crypto exchange and wallet service Coinbase, according to a tweet from Coinbase security researcher Philip Martin posted on June 20. As Martin found, the reported critical zero-day vulnerability in Mozilla’s Firefox web browser, which was announced on June 18, has actually emerged along with another zero-day flaw that targeted Coinbase employees, meaning that there were two separate Firefox zero-day attacks. The Coinbase security expert tweeted: “On Monday, Coinbase detected & blocked an attempt by an attacker to leverage the reported 0-day, along with a separate 0-day firefox sandbox …

The deceased owner of the now-defunct Canadian crypto exchange QuadrigaCX was allegedly transferring user funds off the exchange and using them as a security for his own margin trading on other platforms. The news was revealed in the fifth report from court monitor Ernst & Young (EY), filed on June 19 with the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia. EY has outlined its principal concerns in relation to the exchange, noting that its operations were “significantly flawed from a financial reporting and operational control perspective.” In addition to most of the activities being directed by a single individual — the now-deceased …

The United States Department of Justice (DoJ) has unsealed a fraud complaint against Swedish citizen Roger Nils-Jonas Karlsson and associated firm Eastern Metal Securities (EMS), according to a press release on June 19. According to the DoJ Karlsson and EMS are charged with committing securities fraud, wire fraud and money laundering. Specifically, Karlsson allegedly instructed investors to pay for his products using virtual currencies, such as the cryptocurrency bitcoin (BTC). According to the complaint, the EMS website was registered to a made-up person, and offered shares of “Pre Funded Reversed Pension Plan” of which investors could allegedly purchase shares at …

The United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) launched action against a reportedly fraudulent $147 million bitcoin (BTC) scheme, the regulator announced on June 18. On June 17, the CFTC filed a complaint with the New York Southern District Court against now-defunct United Kingdom-based entity Control-Finance Ltd, which defrauded more than 1,000 investors to launder at least 22,858 bitcoin. The CFTC also brings actions against the entity’s head, Benjamin Reynolds, stating that Control-Finance and Reynolds “exploited public enthusiasm for Bitcoin” from May 1, 2017, to October 31, 2017. The action seeks civil monetary penalties, including “permanent trading and registration bans, …

The personal computers of employees at hacked Japanese crypto exchange Coincheck have allegedly been found to have been infected by a virus associated with a hacker group of Russian origin. The allegation was reported by Cointelegraph Japan on June 16. As Cointelegraph has reported, in January 2018, Coincheck suffered an industry record-breaking hack when $534 million worth of NEM was stolen from its wallets. Cointelegraph Japan cites a report from Japanese media agency Asahi Shimbun, which claims that fresh research has cast doubt on prior assumptions that the high-profile hack had been perpetrated by attackers with a North Korean connection. …