US and Canadian state and provincial securities regulators have opened probes into potentially fraudulent crypto investment programs in what has been dubbed “Operation Cryptosweep”, according to a press release May 21. The latest crackdown on suspicious crypto investment products is reportedly the largest such coordinated investigation by state and provincial officials. Regulators from across 40 jurisdictions coordinated by the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA) have initiated up to 70 investigations, with more to come in the following weeks. Securities regulators have reportedly warned as many as 35 companies about violations of state securities laws with some cases resulting in …

A government-led study in China has detected 421 fake cryptocurrencies, according to a report published today, May 18. IFCERT, a national committee of internet financial security experts initiated by China’s Ministry of Industry and IT, has warned of the dangers of fraud in the crypto space. The committee’s report notes that as of April, over 60% of the 421 detected fake cryptos are run from overseas servers, making them “difficult to find and to track.” IFCERT’s ongoing monitoring identified three key features of fraudulent digital currency profiles. Firstly, their reliance on a so-called ‘pyramid scheme’ operational model, in which investors …

The official Twitter account of Vertcoin, a peer-to-peer digital currency and software project, was compromised earlier today in an attempt to carry out a Bitcoin (BTC) scam. On May 1, the Vertcoin Twitter account posted an announcement of a cryptocurrency giveaway in celebration of Vertcoin’s success. The tweet promised to transfer 10 BTC to the winner, which would be announced on May 3. To enter the giveaway, the fraudsters asked users to send 0.005 BTC to an address they cited in the post: Hey, everyone! Vertcoin and staff are pleased to announce that we’re doing a 10 BTC giveaway to …

Police in Dubai have arrested ten members of a gang who reportedly stole 7 mln AED ($1.9 mln) in an armed Bitcoin heist in the Al Muraqqabat area of Dubai on Wednesday, Gulf News reports Sunday, April 29. Lieutenant Colonel Adel Al Joker, Director of Criminal Investigation Department (CID), told Gulf News: "The brothers searched randomly in the market to buy Bitcoin. The gang lured them claiming they can sell them Bitcoin.” The victims, reported to be two brothers, arranged to meet members of the gang to settle the transaction in an empty office, where they were then assaulted and …

The founder and CEO of Telegram and its TON Initial Coin Offering (ICO) Pavel Durov tweeted a warning on Saturday, Apr 28, telling his followers that the messaging app is experiencing downtime due to its server clusters overheating. Durov’s tweet drew the attention of fake crypto giveaway scammers who have claimed, posing as Telegram’s CEO, to offer crypto to users as a “thank you for [their] support.” According to a report by Cointelegraph’s partner BlockShow Sunday, Apr 29, Durov is not giving away any crypto and users are advised against interacting in any way with the scammers. The scammers have …

Update: Thursday, April 19, Savedroid’s CEO posted a video to YouTube claiming that the apparent exit scam was actually a PR stunt the company pulled off to advocate for “high quality ICO standards.” The founder of German-based startup Savedroid has allegedly disappeared after raising a reported $50 mln through both an Initial Coin Offering (ICO) and private funding, according to local news outlet WirtschaftsWoche, today April 18. CEO and founder Yassin Hankir apparently left the intention behind his disappearance fairly clear with the following tweet, posted earlier today, apparently in Egypt: Thanks guys! Over and out ... #savedroidICO pic.twitter.com/PMRtjlbEdD — …

Microsoft’s Windows Defender Antivirus has blocked an attack of more than 400,000 attempts over a span of 12 hours for trojans to infect users with a cryptocurrency miner, according to a Microsoft blog post on March 7. Windows Defender’s research showed that a little before noon (PST) on March 6, Windows Defender Antivirus began detecting these sophisticated trojans, which are new variants of an application called Dofoil (or Smoke Loader), attempting to inject cryptocurrency mining malwares through “advanced cross-process injection techniques, persistence mechanisms, and evasion methods.” The majority, or 73 percent, of these instances came from Russia, with 18 percent …

North Korean hackers are suspected in a cyberattack on Turkey’s financial sector, as stated in a report released by McAfee March 8. The McAfee Advanced Threat Research team identified an attempt by the hacking group Hidden Cobra to breach the security of Turkish government-backed financial institutions on March 2 and 3. While McAfee policy is to not officially identify cyber groups from nation-states as culprits, they mention in the report that the code of the malware in question closely resembles code used by a hacking operative associated with North Korea. The hackers used modified malware known as a “Bankshot” which …

Cointelegraph has uncovered a profit sharing scheme where self-proclaimed “hackers” lure unsuspecting clients to sell their coins after reading promotional articles purportedly posted on crypto media outlets such as NewsBTC and CryptoCoinsNews. As the old adage goes, when something is too good to be true, it probably is. This appears to be the case with at least one website btcgoi.com, which claims to purchase bitcoins directly from clients via hacked PayPal accounts at above market value at ~US$259 compared to the current market price of ~US$236. Speaking to an online customer service representative by the name of “Elizabeth A.,” I …

Art By: Jing Jin Cloud mining is risky business. Bitcoin mining in general can be risky business, but cloud mining in particular requires a lot of trust. Essentially, you are sending someone money on the promise that they will send you more money back. There is a lot of talk about hardware and cloud mining and state of the art facilities with giant server racks filled with powerful ASICs. At any given service, those things may or may not exist and few things can be done to make sure they exist. Hashie.co, a cloud mining service that claims over 40,000 …

Popular Bitcoin websites such as CryptoCoinsNews and BlockChain, have been used as baits in a wave of phishing attempts against Bitcoin owners. With Bitcoin gaining in popularity, financial-related crimes have boomed during the past year. Scammers have been operating through different strategies and tactics, but the impersonation of a company or service, is definitely the most popular one. On August 14, Bitcoin news website CryptoCoinsNews,com, reported being impersonated in a phishing attack by scammers operating on a similar domain name CryptoCoinZNews.com. CCN said the attacker, under the email address [email protected]/* <![CDATA[ */!function(){try{var t="currentScript"in document?document.currentScript:function(){for(var t=document.getElementsByTagName("script"),e=t.length;e--;)if(t[e].getAttribute("cf-hash"))return t[e]}();if(t&&t.previousSibling){var e,r,n,i,c=t.previousSibling,a=c.getAttribute("data-cfemail");if(a){for(e="",r=parseInt(a.substr(0,2),16),n=2;a.length-n;n+=2)i=parseInt(a.substr(n,2),16)^r,e+=String.fromCharCode(i);e=document.createTextNode(e),c.parentNode.replaceChild(e,c)}}}catch(u){}}();/* ]]> */ …