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Russia Says it Won’t Allow U.S. Inspection for Now of Its Nuclear Weapons

On Monday, Moscow stated that it will not support the resumption of inspections at its nuclear arsenal. The resumption of inspections was discussed due to the New START treaty over travel restrictions imposed by the US. The accord requires that Russia halt the production of long-range nuclear arms and is the last major agreement that…
German diplomat arrested in Brazil for alleged murder of husband

German Consul Uwe Herbert Hahn is currently being held in custody under orders from a Brazilian Judge due to claims that Hahn murdered his husband in Rio de Janeiro. The orders deny defense claims of diplomatic immunity. Rio police took Hahn into custody on Saturday after Walter Henri Maximilien Biot, Hahn’s husband, was found dead…
Phishers Swim Around 2FA in Coinbase Account Heists

Threat actors are evading two-factor authentication and deploying other clever strategies in a recently observed phishing campaign targeting Coinbase users. Security researchers have found that attackers are spoofing the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase to trick users into logging in. After the login, the attackers record the password and username and eventually use the information to drain…
Meta Takes Action Against Cyber Espionage Operations Targeting Facebook in South Asia

Meta has reportedly taken action against two cyber espionage operations located in South Asia and known as APT36 and Bitter APT. The company confirmed the actions in its latest quarterly threat report, published last Thursday. In the report, the risks identified by Meta across the world are discussed. Meta detailed multiple policy violations, including those…
Smishing Attack Led to Major Twilio Breach

Researchers have identified a smishing attack that resulted in a data breach at communications API developer Twilio. As a consequence, an unknown number of customer accounts were accessed by hackers. Current and former Twilio employees were reportedly targeted by SMS-based phishing messages that appeared to come from the firm’s own IT department. Due to the…
Revolut unveils cryptocurrency service in Singapore amidst possible new restrictions

Revolut has launched its new cryptocurrency service in Singapore despite warnings of potential new restrictions facing the industry. The government is currently considering adding more regulations to retail crypto trading within the country, concerned about the volatility of certain coins. The UK-based fintech company Revolut stated that it plans to offer its services responsibly, helping…
$200,000 worth of crypto stolen by hacking into tech CEO’s iCloud account

In a high-profile hack on Saturday, Steven Galanis, the co-founder and CEO of the Cameo app, said that he was the victim of a crypto hack. Galanis tweeted that he had lost several NFTs, including one Bored Ape, and over $70,000 worth of cryptocurrency. While he said that the hack had taken place through his…
Regulating DeFi: Not All Protocols Are Created Equal

One should not underestimate the growth potential of the Decentralized finance industry. However, there are some concerns as to whether regulation is necessary and, if so, how it would affect the future DeFi industry. It is not unlikely to think regulation will be a tangible option but not necessarily a requirement. Following some recent developments in…
Hodlnaut Becomes Latest Crypto Lender to Halt Withdrawals

Those thinking that the recent turmoil in the cryptocurrency market has abated may need to reassess. Singapore-based crypto lender Hodlnaut became the latest in a string of digital-assets firms to halt withdrawals. The company said Monday that the decision was due to “recent market conditions,” and that it was focusing on preserving assets. Hodlnaut said it couldn’t…
Master of Anons: How a Crypto Developer Faked a DeFi Ecosystem

Something about Sunny Aggregator felt off-kilter to the cryptocurrency user known as Saint Eclectic. Sunny was the newest decentralized finance (DeFi) app to hit Solana during that blockchain’s scorching bull run last summer, when its native token jumped fivefold. Sunny was barely two weeks old by early September, but billions of dollars in crypto were…
US Treasury bans Tornado Cash mixer for role in crypto money laundering

The US Department of the Treasury has added the Tornado Cash crypto mixer to a list of sanctioned organizations, barring all US citizens from interacting with it and requiring that US assets belonging to Tornado Cash be reported to the Office of Foreign Assets Control. The announcement was made on Monday morning by the Treasury in…
Zero-Day Bug Responsible for Massive Twitter Breach

According to Twitter, a zero-day vulnerability that lies within its code base was behind a major data breach that affected millions of users. The social media firm has announced that the zero-day vulnerability was identified in January 2022 through the company’s bug bounty program. After the data breach, which affected 5.4 million users, the threat…
Hackers Exploit Hostinger’s Preview Domain Feature to Launch Phishing Campaigns

A team of security researchers from CloudSEK has reportedly discovered a new phishing technique being leveraged by threat actors to target banking customers in India. The phishing campaign is operating via preview domains from the hosting provider Hostinger. The feature allows access to a certain site before it is accessible globally. This means that users…
Cybercrime a Key Revenue Stream For North Korea’s Weapons Program

Reports have emerged that North Korea stole hundreds of millions of dollars in crypto assets during at least one major cyberattack. The United Nations confirmed the attack via a confidential report released to at least one news outlet on Thursday. The document suggests that the US previously accused North Korea of carrying out cyberattacks in…
Deepfake attacks and cyber extortion are creating mounting risks

VMware reportedly identified a new type of malware in February named HermeticWiper deployed in one of the largest attacks in history. The attack was focused on the destruction of critical information and resources and was deployed against Ukraine, says the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Since then, sixty-five percent of defenders have reported that…
Brazil’s Nubank amasses 1 million crypto customers in less than a month

According to security researchers, Brazilian challenger bank Nubank has hit a milestone of 1 million cryptocurrency customers in Brazil less than a month after launching its crypto offering for the first time in June. The rapidly growing customer base indicates the interest the general public has in cryptocurrency, specifically Bitcoin and Ethereum. These two currencies…
Top Pakistan Taliban leader killed in Afghanistan roadside attack

A vehicle carrying members of the Pakistan Taliban, including a senior leader and three other members, was struck by a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan. The late night bombing killed the senior leader and the other three members of the Taliban according to Pakistani officials. Abdul Wali, or Omar Khalid Khorasani was a top commander…
Ceasefire between Israel, Gaza militants holds after deadliest clashes in a year

After a weekend of hostility left dozens of Palestinians dead, a ceasefire between Israel and the Islamic Jihad militant group in Gaza was holding on Monday. The truce was announced on Sunday evening by both sides, 50 hours after the escalation began. Israel had launched preemptive strikes on the targets of the Islamic Jihad militant…
Phishing campaign targets Coinbase wallet holders to steal cryptocurrency in real-time

In this video for Help Net Security, Nick Ascoli, VP of Threat Research, PIXM, discusses a multilayered phishing campaign targeting cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. Attackers are sending out spoofed Coinbase emails to harvest personal credentials and use them to log into users’ legitimate accounts in real-time. The attackers present users with a notification that their account…
Crypto’s Future Depends on Security, Ledger Exec Say

Crypto exchanges and other intermediaries such as cross-chain bridges are where the latest series of crypto hacks on internet-based “hot” wallets have been taking place. Exchanges need to put in additional security measures, said Alex Zinder, global head of hardware wallet maker Ledger Enterprises. Zinder said on CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” show that the crypto…
Nomad and Solana hacks: what are the lessons for cryptocurrency investors?

Web3 adoption seem inevitable, but so does the increase in security issues and hacks. What are the main factors causing this? The high rate of innovation in the crypto world and the frequent software upgrades of the multi-chain world look like they will inevitably introduce more vulnerabilities. We need to have real-time monitoring infrastructure in…
4 things to learn from the embarrassing Slope hack on Solana

Now we know: The hack that drained thousands of user wallets (more than 8,000 at writing time) on cryptocurrency platform Solana wasn’t a result some sort of wide-ranging system failure. It was very likely due to egregiously bad security practices by cryptocurrency wallet provider Slope. According to security company Otter, the hack was due to Slope…
Hacked crypto startup Nomad offers a 10% bounty for return of funds after $190 million attack

Crypto company Nomad said it’s offering hackers a bounty of up to 10% to retrieve user funds after losing nearly $200 million in a devastating security exploit. Nomad pleaded with the thieves to return any funds to its crypto wallet. In a statement late Thursday, the company said it has so far recouped more than $20…
Users Still in the Dark Over $5m Theft From Blockchain Firm Solana

Earlier this week, blockchain platform Solana confirmed that 7767 wallets were impacted during a security incident in which $5 million was stolen. It is unclear what the nature of the incident was and Solana is still investigating alongside security researchers. In addition to Solana customers, Slope and Phantom users were impacted. The root cause of…
VMWare Urges Users to Patch Critical Authentication Bypass Bug

VMware has urged users to implement a recently released patch as soon as possible to protect against a string of flaws that could lead to an attack chain. Multiple products are reportedly affected by a critical authentication bypass vulnerability that can allow a malicious actor to gain access to a system. In addition, the actor…
China sanctions US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after Taiwan trip

China has announced unspecified sanction upon Nancy Pelosi and her immediate family following her visit to the island of Taiwan this week. The Chinese government said Pelosi ignored China’s concerns and opposition to her visit. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and does not support it having individual engagements with foreign governments or world…
Somalia’s cabinet appointment fuels debate

Somalia has appointed a former al-Shabaab leader to the cabinet and has been fueling international debate. Some criticize Hamza Abdi Barre’s administration for the appointment of Mukhtar Robow, however, others view this as a step forward towards reconciliation and a strategic way to battle against the group. The former spokesperson and deputy leader of al-Shabaab…
Joseph Wu defends US Speaker Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan

Taiwan’s foreign minister has defended US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan. Joseph Wu condemned the military exercises that China began in response to the visit on Thursday. He emphasized that China’s response would not stop other democratic politicians from being invited to Taipei. Mr Wu warned that China’s territorial aims go…
Lavrov says Russia is ready to discuss prisoner swap with US after Griner conviction

The US and Russia have both indicated they would like to hold talks over a prisoner swap after Brittney Griner, an American basketball player was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to nine years in prison in Russia. Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, told reporters that the Kremlin is ready to discuss the topic but…
Ukraine Shutters Major Russian Bot Farm

Ukrainian law enforcement has reportedly dismantled a bot farm leveraged by Russian special services. The bot farm was used to spread disinformation and propaganda in the country via social media platforms. The Secret Service of Ukraine (SSU) stated that the bot farm spun content that destabilized the country. Most of this content is believed to…
CFTC Would Become Primary Crypto Regulator Under New Senate Committee Plan

The Senate Agriculture Committee, which oversees the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, introduced a bipartisan bill Wednesday that would grant the CFTC “exclusive jurisdiction” over cryptocurrency trades that meet commodities law. The Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act of 2022, sponsored by Senators Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), John Boozman (R-Ark.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and John Thune (R-S.D.), would…
Web3’s complexity a challenge for security as adoption of ‘the new internet’ grows

Web3 — or the new internet — is growing more mainstream recently. Despite the crypto crash, internet giants have continually invested in Web3 over the past few months. Meta started testing NFTs on Facebook with selected creators; eBay acquired leading NFT marketplace KnownOrigin; Mastercard opened its payment network to Web3. While the new internet revolutionizes industries and…
69% of Stolen Tokens in 2022 was From Cross-Chain Bridge

According to a study released on August 2 by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, there have been 13 separate token bridge violations (Crypto Hacks) this year, the most recent being the $190 million Nomad Bridge hack. According to their calculations, 13 different hacks have resulted in the Cross-chain bridge attacks accounting for 69% of the cash…
Nearly $5M Swiped From Self-Proclaimed ‘World’s Most Secure’ Exchange ZB.com

ZB.com, a cryptocurrency exchange that stopped accepting deposit and withdrawal requests on August 2, has had roughly $4.8 million taken from its hot wallet in a probable attack. Nearly $5 million has been drained from digital asset exchange ZB.com’s hot wallet in a likely hack. Security firm PeckShield made the announcement Wednesday on Twitter, posting…
Is Solana Initiating Recovery Plan After Major Hack?

The global digital asset industry woke to another hacking incident in just two days. This time Solana (SOL) network came on the radar of the hackers. SOL prices have dropped by over 5% since the news broke out. As per reports, around $8 million have been removed from more than 7500 Solana based wallets. The list…
NSF Invests $25.4M into Cybersecurity and Privacy Research Projects

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced on Monday that it plans to invest $25.4 million to support research and projects related to cybersecurity and privacy. The investment is part of the Secure Trustworthy Cyberspace program, which aims to improve cybersecurity and privacy practices to best serve the economy and citizens. The awardees will be organizations…
Google Patches Critical Android Bluetooth Flaw in August Security Bulletin

On Monday, Google published its monthly security bulletin, releasing the latest available patches for Android devices. In this month’s update, a total of 37 vulnerabilities were patched. One of these patches is a critical security flaw that lies in the System component. If exploited by malicious actors, the flaw could lead to remote code execution…
US Indicts Russian Accused of Promoting California’s Secession

US authorities have indicted a Russian national who is accused of running a campaign to cause discord and interfere in elections. The campaign took place in California and was orchestrated by at lest three Russian officials. The campaign ran from December 2014 to March 2022, according to authorities. The individual indicted is Moscow resident Aleksandr…
IAEA says Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant out of control

According to the head of the UN’s nuclear agency, the large nuclear power plant that was occupied by Russia during the invasion of Ukraine is out of control. Rafael Grossi called for the plant to be inspected and for necessary repairs to be made. This nuclear plant is the largest in Europe and is dangerously…
China fires missiles near Taiwan in live-fire drills as PLA encircles island

Multiple missiles were fired towards waters near northeastern and southwestern Taiwan on Thursday by China. Beijing is making good on its promise that Taipei will pay a price after hosting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The Eastern Theater Command from the Chinese military said all missiles hit their target accurately. The live-fire training mission was…
Will DeFi mark the beginning of the end of centralised finance, or mark its value?

Defy. To openly resist. DeFi. The contraction commonly used for decentralised finance. The buzzword used to describe the financial ecosystem getting plenty of mainstream traction sounds similar to the verb used to describe a refusal to obey. And from the outset, DeFi has been all about a defiance of the established hierarchy of banks, brokers and other…
The 10 Most Common NFT Scams and Techniques to Avoid Them

Essentially, there are two types of NFT buyers in the market. The first one is aware of the legitimacy and the working mechanism of NFTs. In contrast, the second one is less proficient at NFTs but still considers them good investments. Undoubtedly, the chances of falling for NFT scams is higher for the second one…
Robinhood’s Crypto Unit Fined $30 Million by New York’s Top Financial Regulator

The New York State Department of Financial Services imposed a $30 million fine on the cryptocurrency trading unit of online brokerage Robinhood Markets Inc. for alleged violations of anti-money-laundering and cybersecurity regulations, in the department’s first crypto enforcement action. The New York State financial regulator said Tuesday that Robinhood Crypto LLC failed to maintain and certify…
Lawmakers propose rules to regulate battered cryptocurrencies

A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday proposed a bill to regulate cryptocurrencies, the latest attempt by Congress to formulate ideas on how to oversee a multibillion-dollar industry that has been racked by collapsing prices and lenders halting operations. The regulations offered by Senate Agriculture Committee chair Debbie Stabenow and top Republican member John Boozman would…
Ongoing solana attack targets thousands of crypto wallets, costing users more than $5 million so far

Nearly 8,000 digital wallets have been drained of just over $5.2 million in digital coins including solana’s sol token and USD Coin (USDC), according to blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. The Twitter account Solana Status confirmed the attack, noting that as of Wednesday morning, approximately 7,767 wallets have been affected by the exploit. Elliptic’s estimate is…
DDoS Attacks Pepper Taiwanese Government Sites

According to the foreign ministry of Taiwan, the websites of the ministry and presidential office were hit by multiple distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, resulting in intermittent outages across several government websites. The attacks occurred after the arrival of senior US lawmaker Nancy Pelosi. The visit has angered Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its…
7 password-stealing Android apps removed from Google Play

Security researchers at Trend Micro reported that seventeen malicious apps designed to infect Android users have been removed from the Google Play Store. The apps used banking malware and have been dubbed DawDropper. The malware campaign leverages four types of banking trojans, Octo, TeaBot, Hydra, and Ermac. The attack type has been described as a…
Malicious Npm Packages Tapped Again to Target Discord Users

Security researchers at Kaspersky recently uncovered a LofyLife campaign that steals tokens and infects client files, allowing them to monitor certain user actions such as logins, password changes, and payment methods. The campaign targets Discord users via the node package manager (NPM) repository. In addition to the aforementioned capabilities, the attacker can also steal information…
Bangladesh turns to ADB, World Bank for funds

The government of Bangladesh has sought assistance from both the World Bank and Asian Development Bank to increase its foreign exchange reserves. The government wrote letters to both entities requesting $1 billion to help the economy. The economy in Bangladesh has been struggling since the effects of the war in Ukraine along with energy price…
US warns of possible retaliation over al-Qaeda death

The United States government has urged its citizens to be vigilant against anti-American violence abroad after the al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed. His death could prompt supporters of al-Qaeda or other terror groups to target US personnel and facilities according to the state department. The state department gave a worldwide caution update after the…
North Korean fraudsters suspected of copying people’s LinkedIn and Indeed profiles in a bid to land jobs at U.S. crypto firms

North Korean hackers are raiding job sites like LinkedIn and Indeed and stealing tidbits of information from real profiles to build plagiarized resumes and land jobs at U.S. cryptocurrency firms, according to security analysts. Security researchers at Mandiant Inc. told Bloomberg that fraudsters were attempting to secure employment at these companies as part of a bigger…
Threat Actors Merging Malicious Activity With Cryptocurrency Show How the Attack Landscape is Developing in Decentralized Finance

Widespread implementation of decentralized finance (DeFi) systems since 2020 has created new fertile ground for a variety of threat actors to shift the development of cyberattack tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). The number of threat actors participating in DeFi activity has grown substantially over the past two years. Current threat actor activity is incentivized by…
Binance US Delists Cryptocurrency SEC Claimed Is a Security

Binance’s U.S. subsidiary announced that it will shutter trading for Flexa’s AMP token after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) identified the asset as security. “We operate in a rapidly evolving industry and our listing and delisting processes are designed to be responsive to market and regulatory developments,” Binance US said in a blog post…
Cryptocurrency fraud scheme busted by US securities agency

US authorities have busted a huge cryptocurrency pyramid scheme, charging 11 people for their role in defrauding retail investors for more than $300m worldwide. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the charges Monday, which relate to a Ponzi scheme called Forsage that had operated for more than two years. The agency charged the alleged…
Hackers drain nearly $200 million from crypto startup in ‘free-for-all’ attack

Hackers drained almost $200 million in cryptocurrency from Nomad, a tool that lets users swap tokens from one blockchain to another, in yet another attack highlighting weaknesses in the decentralized finance space. Nomad acknowledged the exploit in a tweet late Monday. “We are aware of the incident involving the Nomad token bridge,” the startup said. “We are…
Congress Warns of US Court Records System Breach

Last week, Congress warned the public that the US justice system’s public document management system was compromised in a cyberattack. The news was revealed at a hearing on oversight of the Justice Department on Thursday of last week. Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jerold Nadler confirmed that three hostile actors had gained access to…
Nigeria adds 10.5 million young voters ahead of 2023 election

Iver 10 million new voters, most of them young, have been added to Nigeria’s election register ahead of a presidential election next February. In February, a new president will be elected along with members of the Senate, House of representatives and Governors. The Independent National Electoral Commission ended a year-long exercise on Sunday that had…
Al-Qaeda leader killed in US drone strike

The leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has been killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan carried out by the United States. The counter-terrorism operation was carried out by the CIA in the Afghan capital of Kabul on Sunday, Ayman al-Zawahiri plotted the 9/11 attacks with Osama Bin Laden and he was one of America’s most…
The IRS Is Working On A New Tax Form To Capture Your Crypto Activity

The Infrastructure Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 2021 brought cryptocurrency exchanges under the controversial “broker” definition and subjected them to the IRS information reporting regime. As a result, starting January 1, cryptocurrency exchanges will be required to report their customers’ annual cryptocurrency gains and losses to the Internal Revenue Service, similar to stock…
Philosophically, It Doesn’t Matter Whether Cryptos Are Securities; Practically, It Does

I promised Twitter I would write about proof-of-stake and proof-of-work for this newsletter, but my computer (which kept restarting uncontrollably for a couple of days) and my immune system (which gave into a rhinovirus that deposited wet cement into my head) had other ideas. Since a proper proof-of-stake and proof-of-work piece deserves a lot of…