Cryptocurrencies, once the exclusive domain of an idealistic fringe movement, have recently become attractive to mainstream retail investors. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the valuation of cryptocurrencies rose exponentially, reaching a market capitalization of over $2 trillion. Cybercriminals are always looking for the path of least resistance to make money and cryptocurrencies are now in their crosshairs.
Blockchains are not new – they have been around since 2008. A blockchain is simply a distributed database or ledger technology, which stores and manages files of information into groups of data – so-called blocks – which are cryptographically signed and linked together to form a chain. Hence blockchain. Each block also contains a record of exactly when it was created to produce a complete timeline history, which cannot be corrupted, lost or changed.
Cryptocurrency and blockchain are two of the hottest trending topics in the financial and tech worlds, with interest in Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP and even Dogecoin exploding in recent years. This growing interest in cryptocurrencies has made them a target for fraudsters. But it’s not just the popularity of crypto trading that has criminals chomping at the bit. The nature of blockchain currencies makes them highly susceptible to fraudulent activity.
Cybercriminals are running an online competition offering big prizes to anyone who believes they have found an unusual way to help crooks steal cryptocurrency.
Table of Contents PC gamers have long been frustrated by the rising cost of top-performing graphics cards, fueled in part by GPU-hungry cryptocurrency miners. It’s a dream scenario for scalpers, but can it be stopped? As experts in malicious bot activity, we talk a lot about scalpers at Netacea. Our Head of Threat Research Matthew Gracey-McMinn has even appeared on US news channels to talk on the subject.
Are you doing enough to prevent scammers from hijacking your social media accounts? Even if you have chosen a strong, unique password for your online presence and enabled two-factor authentication it’s possible that you’ve overlooked another way in which online criminals could commandeer your social media accounts and spam out a message to your followers.
A staggering $1.9 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen by criminals in 2020, a recent report by Finaria reveals. Fortunately, despite the growth of the crypto market, crypto crime has decreased by 57% since 2019, dropping to $1.9 billion. The widespread recent implementation of stronger security measures also means crypto-criminals stole 160% more in value in 2019 than in 2020, despite the similar number of crimes.
Tech start-up Haidrun has announced its arrival in the fast-growing blockchain market with the launch of its new Haidrun private blockchain platform. With early generations of blockchain offering robustness and trust, but at the expense of confidentiality, performance and cost, Haidrun’s new technology is designed to bridge this gap and specifically address the needs of enterprise customers.
Over time technologies evolved and now things that seemed to be not possible several years ago become the reality. Now you can order food, services, and basically anything you need online, and pay for it without leaving home. No surprise here, that cash payments are becoming a relic of the past. Along with wireless payments like Google or Apple pay (that still require assigning a banking account or card i.e. physical currency), the cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are getting widely used.
Identified as targeting cryptocurrency users through nefarious cross-platform applications, a remote access trojan (RAT) dubbed 'ElectroRAT' has recently been in the headlines following an investigation into the threat by researchers at Intezer.
