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.
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.
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.
With many financially-motivated threat actors targeting cryptocurrency, it comes as no surprise that users of 'Stellar', an opensource blockchain payment network, have recently been targeted in a somewhat convincing attack in an attempt to steal their holdings of Lumen (XLM), an 'altcoin' cryptocurrency.
European cryptocurrency exchange platform Eterbase has announced that it has suffered a security breach which saw malicious hackers access its network and steal funds worth US $5.4 million. In a message posted on Telegram, the Slovakian cryptocurrency exchange listed the six hot wallets plundered by cybercriminals for their Ether, Tezos, Bitcoin, ALGO, Ripple, and TRON riches.
