In little more than 10 years, Bitcoin (BTC) grew from a small cypherpunk community to a matter of national security with vast implications for geopolitics. At the Unitize panel titled “From Bitcoin to Fedcoin: The Next Decade of Digital Money,” Meltem Demirors, CSO of CoinShares, and moderated by Andy Bromberg, president of CoinList, actually spent very little time discussing Fedcoin and central bank currencies in general. Instead, they focused heavily on the implications of a changing geopolitical landscape, where Bitcoin is set to play a role in the upcoming war for tech dominance — while at the same time acting …

Leading crypto hardware wallet producer Ledger has denied that its product’s transaction management software featured a double-spend vulnerability. According to Ledger’s CTO Charles Guillemet, the vulnerability recently revealed by software wallet ZenGo is — in fact — nothing more than a user experience flaw. He illustrated the nature of its hardware wallet companion software Ledger Live to Cointelegraph: “It’s important to understand that rather than an attack, the actual flaw may be seen more as a clever piece of trickery. Trickery is not a vulnerability. However, we do want to prevent anyone from falling victim to these kinds of clever …

As interconnectivity turns the world into a global village, cyberattacks are expectedly on the rise. According to reports, the tail end of last year saw a spike in the average amount of payments made to ransomware attackers, as several organizations were forced to pay millions of dollars to have their files released by malware attackers. Apart from the fact that the current pandemic has left many individuals and corporations vulnerable to attacks, the notion that cryptocurrencies are an anonymous and untraceable payment method has led many ransomware attackers to demand payment in Bitcoin (BTC) and other altcoins. Just recently, a …

Microsoft Security Intelligence alerted users to a type of ransomware, called Avaddon, that uses Excel 4.0 macros to distribute malicious emails. These emails contain attachments which deploy an attack when opened in any version of Excel. Avaddon ransomware emerged in early June through a massive spam campaign that randomly targeted its victims. Some patterns seem to indicate that the ransomware mostly targets Italian users. Impersonating Italian officials As BleepingComputer reports, the attackers behind the ransomware are recruiting “affiliates” to spread the payload. According to their analysis, Avaddon’s average ransom amount is around $900, paid in crypto. The attack commonly impersonates …

A report released by major crypto exchange Binance illustrates how scams targeting cryptocurrency investors attempt to gain credibility. In the report published on June 30, the exchange explained that its Binance Sentry risk investigation service observed reports of fraudulent investment schemes promising quick or exponential returns on cryptocurrency investments. The frauds do not just concern crypto but also forex, binary options and contracts for difference (CFDs). Binance published the report after a Bitcoin (BTC) scam targeted the residents of Winnipeg, Canada, in late June. Scams are often well-organized, big operations Scam organizations are frequently the subject of regulatory warnings but …

A new ransomware is targeting macOS users who download installers for popular apps via torrent files. Known as EvilQuest, the attack was first spotted by Dinesh Devadoss, a K7 Lab malware researcher. Findings show that EvilQuest has been quite active since the start of June 2020. Malware lab firms, like Malwarebytes, have found the ransomware attached to pirated macOS software distributed mainly through torrent sites and warez forums. Same BTC address used EvilQuest asks victims to pay a ransom through the same static Bitcoin (BTC) address in every documented attack. One of the first signs that EvilQuest has deployed an …

Research from Microsoft reveals that Indonesia had the highest malware encounter rate across the Asia Pacific region in 2019. They conclude that this indicates a surge in cryptojacking and ransomware attacks. The report shows that the region continues to experience a “higher-than-average” encounter rate for ransomware and other malware attacks, posting figures 1.6 and 1.7 times higher than the rest of the world, respectively. Ransomware and cryptojacking attacks on the rise in Indonesia Indonesia had a 10.68% malware attack rate during 2019. While this does represent a 39% decrease, the figures remain two times higher than the regional average, Microsoft …

Fraudulent websites successfully have stolen the personal records of a number of individuals from the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, the United States, Singapore, Malaysia, Spain and more. The attack was executed as a targeted multistage Bitcoin (BTC) scam propagated by a number of fraudulent websites. According to the Singapore-based intelligence company Group-IB, the attack exposed personal data for thousands of people. Impersonating recognized media outlets and personalities Victim's phone numbers, which in most cases came with names and emails, were contained in personalized URLs used to redirect people to websites. These sites posed as local news outlets, even going …

The University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine reportedly paid a $1.14 million ransom in cryptocurrencies to the hackers behind a ransomware attack on June 1. According to CBS San Francisco, the UCSF IT staff first detected the security incident, stating that the attack launched by NetWalker group affected “a limited number of servers in the School of Medicine.” Although the areas were isolated by experts from the internal network, the hackers left the servers inaccessible and managed to deploy the ransomware successfully. A statement published by the University of California said: “The data that was encrypted is …

A study published on June 29 revealed a way to drain Bitcoin (BTC) wallets’ funds on the Lightning Network by exploiting a bottleneck in the system. According to the “Flood & Loot: A Systemic Attack On The Lightning Network” paper, Jona Harris and Aviv Zohar from the Hebrew University in Israel evaluated a systemic attack on the Lightning Network that allows for the theft of BTC funds that were locked in payment channels. Flooding the blockchain with simultaneous attacks The Lighting Network is used to send payments through intermediary nodes, which can be leveraged to steal Bitcoin. This usually must …

A study published by cybersecurity firm, Proofpoint, shows an increase in email-based phishing attacks used to deliver ransomware over the last few months. According to the report, first-stage deployments of ransomware are reportedly on the rise and have mostly been targeting the United States, France, Germany, Greece, and Italy. The attacks appear to be capitalizing on the influx of people now working from home amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Research additionally indicates that the ransom demands are very low compared to the amounts usually seen in these attacks. Lower than average ransoms A ransomware application called “Mr. Robot” has mostly targeted …

The Australian Cyber Security Centre said a group of “state actors” hacked Australian networks on June 19 and one of the vulnerabilities they exploited is related to cryptojacking malware attacks. According to the 48-page report released on June 24, the threat actors exploited four critical vulnerabilities in Telerik UI, including CVE-2019-18935, which was recently leveraged by the Blue Mockingbird malware gang to infect thousands of systems with XMRRig, a Monero (XMR) mining software. Vulnerability mostly used for cryptojacking purposes Although the advisory didn’t say if hackers could have installed cryptojacking malware during the recent massive cyberattack, such vulnerability is the …