In what maybe peak hype, Squid Game has its own cryptocurrency. Not in the fictional show, but in real life. As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered. Read my blog posting guidelines here. Powered by WPeMatico
Category: cryptocurrency
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Good article about the current state of cryptocurrency forensics. Powered by WPeMatico
Ransomware isn’t new; the idea dates back to 1986 with the “Brain” computer virus. Now, it’s become the criminal business model of the internet for two reasons. The first is the realization that no one values data more than its original owner, and it makes more sense to ransom it back to them — sometimes … Read More “Disrupting Ransomware by Disrupting Bitcoin” »
The person behind the Bitcoin Fog was identified and arrested. Bitcoin Fog was an anonymization service: for a fee, it mixed a bunch of people’s bitcoins up so that it was hard to figure out where any individual coins came from. It ran for ten years. Identifying the person behind Bitcoin Fog serves as an … Read More “Identifying the Person Behind Bitcoin Fog” »
According to Wired, Signal is adding support for the cryptocurrency MobileCoin, “a form of digital cash designed to work efficiently on mobile devices while protecting users’ privacy and even their anonymity.” Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of Signal and CEO of the nonprofit that runs it, describes the new payments feature as an attempt to extend … Read More “Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support” »
Security researchers have recently discovered a botnet with a novel defense against takedowns. Normally, authorities can disable a botnet by taking over its command-and-control server. With nowhere to go for instructions, the botnet is rendered useless. But over the years, botnet designers have come up with ways to make this counterattack harder. Now the content-delivery … Read More “Illegal Content and the Blockchain” »
Mike Stay broke an old zipfile encryption algorithm to recover $300,000 in bitcoin. DefCon talk here. Powered by WPeMatico
Really interesting research: “An examination of the cryptocurrency pump and dump ecosystem“: Abstract: The surge of interest in cryptocurrencies has been accompanied by a proliferation of fraud. This paper examines pump and dump schemes. The recent explosion of nearly 2,000 cryptocurrencies in an unregulated environment has expanded the scope for abuse. We quantify the scope … Read More “Cryptocurrency Pump and Dump Scams” »
A malicious Chrome extension surreptitiously steals Ethereum keys and passwords: According to Denley, the extension is dangerous to users in two ways. First, any funds (ETH coins and ERC0-based tokens) managed directly inside the extension are at risk. Denley says that the extension sends the private keys of all wallets created or managed through its … Read More “Chrome Extension Stealing Cryptocurrency Keys and Passwords” »
The US Department of Justice unraveled a dark web child-porn website, leading to the arrest of 337 people in at least 18 countries. This was all accomplished not through any backdoors in communications systems, but by analyzing the bitcoin transactions and following the money: Welcome to Video made money by charging fees in bitcoin, and … Read More “Dark Web Site Taken Down without Breaking Encryption” »