Category: cryptocurrency

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Ransomware Payments Are Down

Posted on By infossl
crime, cryptocurrency, cybercrime, extortion, ransomware, Security technology, Uncategorized

Chainalysis reports that worldwide ransomware payments were down in 2022. Ransomware attackers extorted at least $456.8 million from victims in 2022, down from $765.6 million the year before. As always, we have to caveat these findings by noting that the true totals are much higher, as there are cryptocurrency addresses controlled by ransomware attackers that … Read More “Ransomware Payments Are Down” »

Decarbonizing Cryptocurrencies through Taxation

Posted on By infossl
bitcoin, blockchain, courts, cryptocurrency, essays, laws, Security technology, Uncategorized

Maintaining bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies causes about 0.3 percent of global CO2 emissions. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s more than the emissions of Switzerland, Croatia, and Norway combined. As many cryptocurrencies crash and the FTX bankruptcy moves into the litigation stage, regulators are likely to scrutinize the cryptocurrency world more than … Read More “Decarbonizing Cryptocurrencies through Taxation” »

NSA Employee Charged with Espionage

Posted on By infossl
cryptocurrency, cyberespionage, espionage, fbi, nsa, Security technology, Uncategorized, undercover

An ex-NSA employee has been charged with trying to sell classified data to the Russians (but instead actually talking to an undercover FBI agent). It’s a weird story, and the FBI affidavit raises more questions than it answers. The employee only worked for the NSA for three weeks—which is weird in itself. I can’t figure … Read More “NSA Employee Charged with Espionage” »

A Taxonomy of Access Control

Posted on By infossl
cryptocurrency, cryptography, keys, Security technology, taxonomies, Uncategorized

My personal definition of a brilliant idea is one that is immediately obvious once it’s explained, but no one has thought of it before. I can’t believe that no one has described this taxonomy of access control before Ittay Eyal laid it out in this paper. The paper is about cryptocurrency wallet design, but the … Read More “A Taxonomy of Access Control” »

On the Dangers of Cryptocurrencies and the Uselessness of Blockchain

Posted on By infossl
bitcoin, blockchain, cryptocurrency, essays, Security technology, Uncategorized

Earlier this month, I and others wrote a letter to Congress, basically saying that cryptocurrencies are an complete and total disaster, and urging them to regulate the space. Nothing in that letter is out of the ordinary, and is in line with what I wrote about blockchain in 2019. In response, Matthew Green has written—not … Read More “On the Dangers of Cryptocurrencies and the Uselessness of Blockchain” »

15.3 Million Request-Per-Second DDoS Attack

Posted on By infossl
cryptocurrency, cyberattack, denial of service, Security technology, Uncategorized

Cloudflare is reporting a large DDoS attack against an unnamed company “operating a crypto launchpad.” While this isn’t the largest application-layer attack we’ve seen, it is the largest we’ve seen over HTTPS. HTTPS DDoS attacks are more expensive in terms of required computational resources because of the higher cost of establishing a secure TLS encrypted … Read More “15.3 Million Request-Per-Second DDoS Attack” »

De-anonymizing Bitcoin

Posted on By infossl
bitcoin, child pornography, cryptocurrency, de-anonymization, Security technology, tracing, Uncategorized

Andy Greenberg wrote a long article — an excerpt from his new book — on how law enforcement de-anonymized bitcoin transactions to take down a global child porn ring. Within a few years of Bitcoin’s arrival, academic security researchers — and then companies like Chainalysis — began to tear gaping holes in the masks separating … Read More “De-anonymizing Bitcoin” »

Stolen Bitcoins Returned

Posted on By infossl
bitcoin, cryptocurrency, cybercrime, fbi, law enforcement, Security technology, theft, Uncategorized

The US has returned $154 million in bitcoins stolen by a Sony employee. However, on December 1, following an investigation in collaboration with Japanese law enforcement authorities, the FBI seized the 3879.16242937 BTC in Ishii’s wallet after obtaining the private key, which made it possible to transfer all the bitcoins to the FBI’s bitcoin wallet. … Read More “Stolen Bitcoins Returned” »