A hardware wallet may just be the safest way to store cryptocurrency for average users. Nowadays, many different devices are trying to tackle the challenges of secure crypto asset storage. In this article, Cointelegraph will review some of the most well-known hardware wallets and compare their features. The cryptocurrency wallets that will be covered in this article are Ledger’s Nano X and Nano S, SatoshiLabs’s Trezor One and Trezor Model T, ShapeShift’s KeepKey, and Coinkite’s Coldcard and Opendime. It is also important to point out that all the wallets tested in this article, other than the Ledger Nano S (which …

Black hat hacker group Maze has infected the infrastructure of a firm researching the coronavirus with ransomware, managing to steal and publish sensitive data. The hack of medical information Cybersecurity firm Emsisoft told Cointelegraph on March 23 that Maze group’s hackers compromised United Kingdom medical firm Hammersmith Medicines Research. The published data includes sensitive data on medical test volunteers such as id documents like passports, medical background and details of the tests. Emsisoft threat analyst Brett Callow said: “[The data] is on the clear web where it can be accessed by anybody with an internet connection. [...] The criminals almost …

As the novel coronavirus crisis continues, a cybersecurity firm has started offering free help to healthcare providers that fall victim to cryptocurrency-demanding ransomware. According to an announcement on March 18, cybersecurity firm Emsisoft partnered with incident response company Coveware to allow free access to ransomware-related services at no cost to healthcare providers. The initiative aims to get the impacted organizations operational in the shortest time possible to reduce the impact on patient care to a minimum. “A perfect storm” According to the firm, ransomware attacks have a seasonal aspect with the number of incidents spiking during the spring and summer …

Crypto bounty payment platform Gitcoin announced it has enabled contributor payouts in Ethereum Classic (ETC). In partnership with Ethereum Classic Labs, bounty seekers now have the option to receive pay in ETC for their work on various open-sourced projects, Ethereum Classic Labs said in a March 16 announcement. The ETC core team confirmed to Cointelegraph that this partnership provides the option for ETC payout, regardless of the project being worked on. “This allows hunters to receive pay in ETC for our bounties and enables people who want to pay in ETC to do so,” the team said in an email. …

The company that almost broke DeFi is asking for a new beginning. When the decentralized lending protocol bZx was hacked to the tune of some $1 million last month, some started questioning the future of decentralized finance, commonly referred to as DeFi. On March 9, bZx co-founder Kyle Kistner published a post on the company’s website titled “Mea Culpa: A New Beginning.” The post retraces all the steps that led to the hack, with Kistner taking full responsibility for the vulnerability. Users will not lose money Kistner states that the protocol users will not bear any losses. Instead he writes …

In a major privacy breach, the usernames and passwords of more than a quarter of a million Trident Crypto Fund customers have been stolen and published online. Technical director of cybersecurity firm DeviceLock Ashot Oganesyan told Russian news outlet IZ the database — which contains email addresses, cellphone numbers, encrypted passwords and IP addresses — had been uploaded to various file sharing websites on February 20. Earlier this week, hackers decrypted and published close to 120,000 of the passwords, potentially enabling them to log into affected users’ accounts and access their funds. 10,000 Russians affected Oganesyan said that while attacks …

The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned two Chinese nationals accused of laundering cryptocurrency that was stolen in a 2018 crypto exchange hack. At the same time, the Department of Justice announced an indictment for money laundering against the same two individuals. Their activity is linked to Lazarus Group, a hacking group allegedly connected to the North Korean government. OFAC accuses Yinyin Tian and Juiadong Li of assisting “a malicious cyber-enabled activity.” Secretary Steven Mnuchin gave the following statement: “The North Korean regime has continued its widespread campaign of extensive cyber-attacks on financial institutions …

Speaking at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, cybersecurity experts Aaron Turner and Georgia Weidman discussed two-factor authentication and biometrics as means to securing one’s phone. Although they concur that the two-factor authentication is the way to go, there are certain caveats. Authenticator apps like Google Authenticator generally provide better security than SMS-based schemes, however, they are only as good as the devices running them. iOS v. Android — safest phones Turner also dispels the myth that iPhones are more secure than Android devices and warns against iPhones that run anything but the latest iOS 13. Amongst android smartphones, he …

ThreatFabric, an Amsterdam-based cybersecurity firm specializing in threats to the financial industry, has identified the "Cerberus" Trojan that steals 2-Factor Authentication (2FA) codes generated by the Google Authenticator app for internet banking, email accounts, and cryptocurrency exchanges. US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is one of the crypto platforms listed in Cerberus’ exhaustive list of targets — which also includes major financial institutions around the world and social media apps. The cybersecurity firm notes that it has not identified any advertisement on the dark beb for Cerberus’ updated features, leading it to believe that the updated version is “still in the test …

On Feb. 24, Tim Watts, Australia’s Shadow Assistant Minister for Cybersecurity, has published an article in the Financial Review on Feb. 24, criticizing the country’s government for its response to the 2019 “ransomware epidemic.” Watts states that Australia was not immune to last year’s ransomware outbreaks, citing a Victorian government regional health network that shut down their systems after becoming infected. The incident resulted in multiple surgeries being delayed. Watts also notes that during late Jan. 2020, Melbourne-based global transport company Toll “lost the use of up to 1,000 servers in a ransomware attack,” forcing the company to implement manual …

After naming Kristina Littman as Chief of the Division of Enforcement’s Cyber Unit in December, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission has introduced more fresh blood to its ranks. On Feb. 13, Nancy Sumption was announced as the successor to Kevin Zerrusen, the former Senior Advisor for Cybersecurity Policy to Chairman Jay Clayton. Nancy Sumption has worked in cybersecurity and privacy in healthcare and finance in addition to her two decades of public service as an officer and staff judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. intelligence community, and the Department of Justice. In an SEC press …

Oil is central to the growth of the global economy and maintenance of political stability. But for an industry that plays such an important role in both shaping and maintaining the world around us, its business model is quickly becoming outdated. As the industry struggles to adapt to the demands of a rapidly changing and politically charged world, some of the largest oil companies are looking to modernize through blockchain. Moreover, governments around the world are struggling to come to terms with the consequences of climate change, and the extraction of fossil fuels does nothing to help reduce emissions. As …