Cybercrime

Tornado Cash is the latest crypto mixer to join the US Department of Treasury’s list of sanctioned organizations. The Department shared the news in a press release on Monday alongside other details of the sanction. In its release, the US Treasury highlighted Tornado Cash’s role in several stolen crypto launders as its primary reason for the sanction. Tornado Cash and Cybercrime Tornado Cash is the second service platform to have received a sanction from the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets…

Blockfolio, a popular crypto portfolio tracking app with over 6 million users, was hacked last night. The FTX-owned trading platform was breached by a malicious character who sent push notifications containing offensive racist slurs that appeared to come from the app's team. The hacker also renamed several coins on the app with racist titles. https://twitter.com/UnderTheBreach/status/1359038370903691265 The breach on Blockfolio to display offensive content captured the attention of multiple Twitter users who alerted the wider crypto community of the incident.  https://twitter.com/davidgokhshtein/status/1359037442372886528 It…

A new report from Chainalysis has indicated that the share of crypto transactions linked to criminal activities fell in 2020. According to the report, the percentage reduced from 2.1 recorded in 2019 to only 0.34. However, ransomware attacks have tripled in volumes when compared to what was recorded in 2019. A major drop in cryptocurrency criminal activities So often, regulators and mainstream media point out that criminals use cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Although the argument has been proven false in recent…

Alexander Vinnik, a Russian man charged with multiple crimes including Bitcoin fraud worth millions of dollars, will start his trial today in France, the Washington Post reported Monday. Vinnik, 41, was accused of using ransomware in a €135 million ($157 million) Bitcoin fraud. He now faces a trial in Paris on the count of extortion, money laundering, and criminal association. He could spend up to ten years in prison if found guilty. The French authorities claimed that the accused was…

Alexander Vinnik was arrested in Greece on an extradition order from the U.S. as prosecutors said he allegedly controlled a Bitcoin exchange that laundered billions of dollars for criminal networks. After his arrest in 2017, he was extradited to France where he is still in custody. He was said to have allegedly laundered 300,000 Bitcoin (about $4 billion) within six years through BTC-e, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world at the time. Further, he was accused of facilitating money…

May 7 is the World Password Day. Interestingly, the cryptocurrency space has introduced an enhanced means of getting around insecure passwords and phishing attacks. That is, with this new solution, there is no need to utilize a password which criminals exploit to carry out cyber attacks. This solution is the lnurl-auth protocol which permits signing into a variety of accounts by receiving a QR code with a special message. Users will be able to utilize a public key attached to their wallets…

CipherTrace has released a new product known as Armada today. The purpose of the product is to assist banks in uncovering the risks known with cryptocurrency exchanges. Every year, without knowing, banks in the U.S. process up to $2 billion in cryptocurrency funds. However, 80 percent of the banks process them for illicit money services businesses. The Silicon Valley-based blockchain analysis company noted that Armada will help banks in dealing with this issue and remain compliant with anti-money laundering laws. The product…