Security News
PCrisk found a new Dharma ransomware variant that appends the. PCrisk found a new STOP ransomware variant that appends the.
Infosec must "Reclaim" the word crypto from people who trade in Bitcoins and other digital currencies, according to industry veteran Bruce Schneier - and it seems some Reg readers agree. "I have long been annoyed that the word 'crypto' has been co-opted by the blockchain people, and no longer refers to 'cryptography'," blogged Schneier in a classically brief post on Monday.
As the agency describes it, the scammer will contact their victim and somehow convince them that they need to send money, either with promises of love, further riches, or by impersonating an actual institution like a bank or utility company. After the mark is convinced, the scammer will have them get cash, and head to an ATM that sells cryptocurrencies and supports reading QR codes.
During the early days of the pandemic, while the rest of the world was stress streaming and working on sourdough starter, an ambitious teen stuck in his bedroom decided to set up a fake "Love2Shop" gift card site to harvest people's payment information, invest the stolen money in cryptocurrency and become a millionaire. His age certainly didn't prohibit the scammer from being allowed to purchase Google ads to help lure people to his phishing scam site, according to prosecutors, ultimately ranking the scam phishing site over the legitimate one.
Almost $7 million worth of Bitcoin in a wallet controlled by DarkSide ransomware operators has been moved in what looks like a money laundering rollercoaster. The DarkSide ransomware gang has extorted dozens of victims of tens of millions of U.S. dollars, their most famous attack being on May 7, against the largest fuel pipeline in the United States, Colonial Pipeline.
Ransomware extracted at least $590 million for the miscreants who create and distribute it in the first half of 2021 alone - more than the $416 million tracked in all of 2020, according to the US government's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. FinCEN analysed 635 SARs, of which 458 described transactions reported between 1 January 2021 and 30 June 2021 and the remainder reported older transactions later found to be suspicious.
Based on blockchain analysis of transactions tied to the 177 CVC wallets, FinCEN identified roughly $5.2 billion in outgoing BTC transactions potentially tied to ransomware payments. FinCEN also linked these transactions to a total of $590 million exposed by 458 transactions reported and 635 SARs filed by financial institutions this year, between January 2021 and June 2021.
This week, threat actors hijacked Bitcoin.org, the authentic website of the Bitcoin project, and altered its parts to push a cryptocurrency giveaway scam that unfortunately some users fell for. Bitcoin.org hacked to run 'double your money' scam.
When Colorado resident Andrew Schober downloaded the Electrum Atom Bitcoin wallet from Reddit, he also picked up a piece of clipboard hijacking malware that eventually redirected his 16.4552 Bitcoin to a wallet controlled by two teenagers living in the U.K. At today's price, 16.4552 Bitcoin would be worth ~$773,000. Because they were juveniles at the time of the alleged theft, Schober is suing their parents for the nearly $1 million he lost in the heist.
Larry Dean Harmon, the owner of a dark web cryptocurrency laundering service known as Helix, pleaded guilty today of laundering over $300 million worth of bitcoins between 2014 and 2017. "In total, Helix moved over 350,000 bitcoin - valued at over $300 million at the time of the transactions - on behalf of customers, with the largest volume coming from Darknet markets."