Category: Cybersecurity

A self-styled “grey hat” hacker figured out how to trick Ethereum scaling solution Optimism into effectively printing unlimited Ether earlier this month. Software engineer Jay Freeman (who goes by Saurik online) didn’t leverage the exploit. Instead, he reported the issue to Optimism’s dev team, who paid him a $2-million bug bounty. Freeman is probably best known for his work on Cydia, the app store for jailbroken iPhones. However, more recently he’s been looking for bugs on blockchains. According to a breakdown on Freemans’ website, he discovered the glitch while looking…

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PayBito is a bitcoin and cryptocurrency exchange for major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin, Ethereum, HCX, Litecoin, Ethereum Classic. The exchange is operated by global blockchain and IT services company HashCash. LockBit ransomware operators claim to have stolen customers’ data from the PayBito crypto exchange, the name of the company was published on the gang’s Tor leak site. Lockbit ransomware operators claim to have stolen a database containing personal data belonging to more than 100,000 customers worldwide. Read more: securityaffairs.co

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Some UK ministers of parliament are calling for greater protection of citizens as a perceived “crypto craze” is encouraging people with little knowledge of investing to enter this new sector. Vulnerable young people are especially in danger according to an article on inews, and the particular dangers that raise most concern are those of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Some niches within the cryptocurrency sector are singled out as areas where vulnerable people can lose their money. Fan tokens are one such area. The cryptocurrency Chiliz (CHZ) and all the associated separate…

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A cryptocurrency inspired by Squid Game successfully enticed enough investors to see its value soar to over $2,800… before its creators cashed out and vanished. The cryptocurrency called $SQUID, which wasn’t officially sanctioned by Netflix, launched in late October and rose up to 310,000 percent in value within just a few days. It was sold supposedly as a way to play an upcoming online game based on the South Korean series, in which people buried in debt are forced to play a deadly game. At 5:40AM on Monday morning, however,…

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The largest hack in recorded history took place yesterday when attackers exploited a vulnerability that could change the “keeper role” of a blockchain contract and make any transaction such as a withdrawal, according to a Medium post by Poly Network. Poly Network, a platform that looks to connect different blockchains so that they can work together, confirmed that the vulnerability was due to the leakage of a keeper’s private key. In a tweet thread, SlowMist confirmed that over $610m was stolen. The security team has also confirmed that it “has…

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More than $760 million worth of Bitcoin, stolen from cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex in 2016, were moved on Wednesday to new accounts. The funds were moved in tens of transactions ranging from 1 to as much as 1,200 bitcoin (BTC) at a time. According to a summary of recent transactions put together by The Record using data from blockchain tracking services like Whale Alert and BTCparsers, the transferred sum ranges from 10057.5798 BTC (per Whale Alert) to 12230.08861 BTC (per BTCParsers). The moved funds represent around 10% of the sum stolen…

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The highest number of exchanges defying regulatory norms are in Europe. More than half of all exchanges worldwide have weak KYC identification protocols — with exchanges in Europe, the U.S. and U.K. among the worst offenders, according to a new study by blockchain analysis firm CipherTrace CipherTrace analyzed more than 800 decentralized, centralized, and automated market maker exchanges and found 56% of them did not follow KYC guidelines at all despite anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. The highest number of such exchanges are in Europe — a region renowned for stricter…

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Dubbed “Transparent Blockchain,” Russia’s new crypto analytics system is designed to fight illicit activity related to crypto. A major financial watchdog in Russia is developing a new cryptocurrency analytics tool to trace major cryptos like Bitcoin (BTC) and privacy coins. Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service, a federal service combating money laundering and terrorist financing, is reportedly planning to build a new analytics platform for tracking cryptocurrency transactions via artificial intelligence. Dubbed “Transparent Blockchain,” the new system is designed to track the movement of digital financial assets and identify crypto service…

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