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…

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’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…

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 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…

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…

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…

Trung Nguyen – Co-Founder and CEO of Axie Infinity – said the accusations against him of being engaged in insider trading are “baseless and false.” However, he admitted transferring $3 million worth of AXS to “ensure that short-sellers would not be able to front-run the news.” In March this year, Ronin Bridge – an Ethereum sidechain…

Scammers have been taking advantage of blockchain’s decentralized and immutable nature to swindle crypto investors since the advent of the technology. And, according to the latest FBI fraud report, fraudsters are using fake crypto apps to steal money from unsuspecting crypto investors. It highlights that American investors have lost approximately $42.7 million to swindlers through…

From Starbucks to Lamborghinis, consumers are using cryptocurrency to pay for a variety of goods — and retailers are taking notice. Nearly 75% of retailers plan to accept either cryptocurrency or stablecoin payments within the next two years, according to a June survey conducted by Deloitte titled “Merchants getting ready for crypto.” Deloitte polled a sample of…

While Coinbase’s problems with the SEC have flared up just in the past week, they represent the exact scenario that has been keeping crypto executives up at night for far longer. In fact, Coinbase spokeswoman Lisa Johnson told me the company had been working for several months on the lengthy petition it filed with the agency…

Solana-based DeFi protocol, Nirvana Finance lost $3.5 million to a flash loan attack on July 28. The attack resulted in Nirvana’s native token ANA losing 85% of its value. The token’s price fell from $8.97 to as low as $0.81 within hours of the attack before rebounding to its current value of $1.26, CoinGecko data revealed. The…

Ethereum’s price surged by more than 40% in mid-July following an announcement by the second-largest blockchain. If you didn’t catch it at the time, you might wonder what kind of announcement has such power to send the price of ethereum surging. It all comes down to the difference between proof of stake and proof of work…

Yet another decentralized lending and algorithmic stablecoin protocol was hacked yesterday, with $3.5 million stolen from its treasury via what appears for now to be a one-off exploit. As a result, Nirvana Finance’s NIRV stablecoin lost its peg — it’s at 15 cents as of this writing, and the ANA token used to maintain it…

Bitcoin is trending upward, currently trading at around $23,703. In the last 24 hours, the largest cryptocurrency by market value popped over 10%, according to CoinGecko, reacting positively after the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday. Ethereum is also in the green, up 16% in the same timeframe. Ether (ETH) is currently trading…

Kraken, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, is under federal investigation, suspected of violating U.S. sanctions by allowing users in Iran and elsewhere to buy and sell digital tokens, according to five people affiliated with the company or with knowledge of the inquiry. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control has been investigating Kraken…

It is highly likely, and hardly a surprise, that in the near future the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) will increase the number of enforcement actions it brings against crypto industry participants. It is widely known in the crypto industry that the SEC’s Division of Enforcement has been investigating a number of high-profile crypto…

More than $14.5 billion in crypto has been lost to hacks and scams since 2011, and DeFi (decentralized finance) is attackers’ new favorite target, says analytics firm Crystal Blockchain. In the past 11 years, there have been 167 hacks of DeFi protocols and 123 security breaches on centralized exchanges, according to Crystal’s new report. While…

Even as cryptocurrency markets face economic turbulence, there’s one segment of blockchain-based industries where business is booming: blockchain security. A boutique industry of auditing firms formed over the past few years to deal with the emerging technology now boasts up to a year-long wait time to even begin working with customers and a growing list of…

Prominent U.S. senators are trying to free Americans from tracking taxes every time cryptocurrencies change hands, introducing a bill that would exempt them from reporting any transactions up to $50 or any trade in which they earn less than $50. Sen. Patrick Toomey (R-Pa.) joined with Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to push the exemption from tax…

Two Web3 security firms have issued reports focused on the recent scourge of hacks targeting NFT projects, likely by a linked group of hackers using compromised Discord server administrator accounts. According to a recent analysis by TRM Labs, cyber attacks against NFT collections have steadily risen in 2022, costing the NFT community over $22 million in…

More than $14.5 billion in crypto has been lost to hacks and scams since 2011, and DeFi (decentralized finance) is attackers’ new favorite target, says analytics firm Crystal Blockchain. In the past 11 years, there have been 167 hacks of DeFi protocols and 123 security breaches on centralized exchanges, according to Crystal’s new report. While…

Ethereum, the world’s second-biggest blockchain, is switching to a new security model that at least one legal expert claims could raise an issue with profound repercussions for the cryptocurrency market. Why it matters: If ether (ETH), the coin that runs Ethereum, is found to be a “security” by the Securities and Exchange Commission, it’s hard to…

Hacks and scams aren’t new to the crypto-verse. Ill doers have shown no mercy despite the gruesome bear market. They have in fact adopted new and innovative ways to pocket easy money. One such method that seems to have taken the front stage in 2022 is cryptojacking. While the term isn’t as popular as other…

The source code for an information-stealing malware coded in Rust has been released for free on hacking forums, with security analysts already reporting that the malware is actively used in attacks. The malware, which the author claims to have developed in just six hours, is quite stealthy, with VirusTotal returning a detection rate of around 22%.…

Hackers exploited a software bug in the Web3 music platform Audius to make off with $1.1 million on Saturday, but the funds are a drop in the nearly-$2 billion dollar bucket of funds lost to hacks through the first half of 2022, according to Blockchain security firm Beosin. The fiat value of hacked assets are on…

The regulator which could soon be responsible for more of the US’s crypto oversight is beefing up its technology team, the agency’s chief said on Monday. The Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which stands to gain greater authority over digital assets under the proposals of a bipartisan congressional bill, is setting up a new Office…

There have been so many recent multimillion-dollar cryptocurrency thefts that it’s easy to lose track. Organized crime, bad cybersecurity, financially motivated spies, and colorful criminals of all kinds have made so many headlines that even huge heists can go mostly unnoticed by the public. But sometimes the government is able to get it back. Last…

For Michelle Milkowski, who lives in Renton, Washington, one thing led to another. Because her son’s daycare closed in the early days of the pandemic, she had some extra cash. So, like millions of other people, Milkowski downloaded the Robinhood trading app. Back then, the stock market was at the beginning of what would become…