Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky has detected more than 1,500 fraudulent entities targeting potential crypto investors and miners just in the first half of 2021. Kaspersky’s research shows that 0.60% of users from South African countries have already been targeted by malicious crypto miners. The report also suggests that the most common methods of duping unwary users involved false advertisements claiming to sell mining equipment and fake websites posing as crypto exchanges. Kaspersky’s data based on anonymized statistics revealed that 0.85% of crypto investors from Kenya and 0.71% Nigerians were targets of crypto-miner malware, while investors from Ethiopia (3.68%) and Rwanda …

Cryptocurrency-related fraud and theft are likely to grow in the post-COVID-19 world, according to a new report by cybersecurity and antivirus provider Kaspersky Lab. Securelist, Kaspersky’s cyberthreat research arm, published a report on cyberthreats to financial organizations, forecasting some specific types of financial attacks that are likely to surge in 2021. Securelist has predicted that a wave of poverty fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic will inevitably lead to “more people resorting to crime including cybercrime.” That could also mean a rise in crimes related to Bitcoin (BTC). According to Kaspersky’s research arm, Bitcoin is likely to be the most attractive …

Data published by Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky indicates that Singapore has seen a significant increase in the prevalence of attempted cryptojacking attacks during the first quarter of 2020. Kaspersky estimates that 11,700 attacks were attempted on devices located in Singapore from January until March — up from 2,900 as of the first Q1 2019. Kaspersky asserted that the spike in attacks is the highest percentage increase posted within the South-East Asian region. Cryptojacking attacks up three-fold in Singapore In an interview with Straits Times, Kaspersky’s general manager for South-East Asia, Yeo Siang Tiong, described Singapore’s high-performance internet infrastructure as attracting …

When blockchain technology was first brought to the public’s attention, it was lauded on many fronts as “unhackable.” While there are many benefits to blockchain worth noting already, we probably still haven’t seen what its ultimate potential will be. One thing is certain though: It is not unhackable. That reality has been illustrated with increasing clarity to the tune of around $2 billion in cryptocurrency stolen by hackers since 2017. Recent attacks have seen a shift in focus from public networks, such as the Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains, to private networks built for the use of large corporations. In theory, …

Blockchain voting is gaining more traction in the United States despite the abysmal failure of mobile voting at the Iowa Democratic Caucus earlier this month. Companies on the forefront of blockchain technology realize the potential of the products they are developing to not only transform the global economy, but also the way voters cast their ballots. This week, Kaspersky Lab, a cybersecurity firm monitoring the cryptocurrency industry and emerging digital assets, did just that. The company unveiled a new type of a blockchain-based voting machine using Polys, the system released back in November 2017 designed to be an effective and …

Bitcoin (BTC) scammers may be abandoning the cryptocurrency to focus on extorting money via prepaid debit cards, a new study suggests. Revealing its findings in a blog post on Dec. 16, cybersecurity company Kaspersky Lab highlighted a growing trend in Brazil as an example of hackers’ growing taste for prepaid cards. Prepaid cards’ international appeal Specifically, a so-called “sextortion” scam — demanding a victim pay money to avoid compromising information about his or her private life going public — targets Acesso cards in the country. “The debit cards in this particular sextortion scheme — Acesso cards — are sold in …

A new survey by Moscow-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab introduced on June 17th revealed that 19% of people globally have purchased cryptocurrency. The survey, titled “The Kaspersky Cryptocurrency Report 2019,” was carried out in October and November 2018, with a total of 13,434 respondents in 22 countries. According to the report, 81% of global population have never purchased cryptocurrencies, while only 10% of respondents said they “fully understand how cryptocurrencies work.” Meanwhile, just 14% of those who haven’t ever used cryptocurrencies would like to do so in the future, the report notes. Key findings of The Kaspersky Cryptocurrency Report 2019. …

Cryptocurrencies have gone a long way since the day when, nine years ago, Laszlo Hanyecz had paid 10,000 bitcoins for two large Papa John’s pizzas, marking the first purchase of tangible goods for digital money. Although bitcoin is still far from being universally accepted by retailers, thousands of merchants around the world are taking crypto in exchange for goods — and their ranks grow daily. The latest of the big developments in this vein came up at this year’s Consensus conference, as blockchain startup Flexa made public its partnership with a number of major U.S. retailers. Flexa’s payments app, Spedn, …

Eugene Kaspersky, the CEO of the cybersecurity giant Kaspersky, stated in a recent interview that “cryptocurrencies are a great idea, but the world is not ready for them yet.” Kaspersky made the statement to financial news website Arabian Business on March 1. Kaspersky elaborated, stating that he believes that in the future — “perhaps in a 100 years’ time” — the world will be united under a single government, which turn will have a single, digital currency. According to the entrepreneur, “the world must be united if we want to have encrypted currencies. At the moment, governments will want to …

Saratov Oblast, a region in Southern Russia, has conducted a reportedly successful blockchain election with 40,000 participants, according to a press release shared with Cointelegraph Dec. 18. On Dec. 12, participants voted to elect members of the local Youth Parliament via the blockchain-driven electronic polling system Polys, developed by Kaspersky Lab in 2017. According to the press release, the decentralized network was deployed at 110 polling stations and the election lasted seven hours. Blockchain-driven voting mechanisms are being actively tested on both the regional and national levels in many countries. Switzerland implemented blockchain-based voting this summer, while the United States …

Kaspersky Lab’s security experts have found that cyber criminals were able to steal more than 21,000 in Ethereum (ETH) (worth around $10 million) through social engineering schemes over the past year, Cointelegraph auf Deutsch reports Thursday, July 12. According to a July 9 report, cyber criminals have triggered more than a hundred thousand alarms altogether on security software in connection with cryptocurrencies since the beginning of 2018. Kaspersky Lab notes that scammers particularly single out investors interested in Initial Coin Offerings (ICO), using fake websites and phishing emails containing an e-wallet number to trick their targets out of money. The …

A new cybersecurity report from Kaspersky Labs notes a significant decline in the amount of ransomware targeting Internet users as compared to the growing increase of cryptojacking, in a report published June 27. The Kaspersky Labs report seeks to answer the question: “But if ransomware no longer wears the threat crown, what is the new king?” According to Kaspersky labs, crypto miners were able to gain popularity due to their “discreet and modest way to make money by exploiting users”: “Instead of the large one-off payout achieved with ransomware, cybercriminals employing mining as a tactic can benefit from an inconspicuous, …