Bitcoin | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Hackers are now going crazy and trying new ways in Biohacking . Until now, we have seen a hacker who implanted a small NFC chip in his hand in order to hack Android smartphones and bypass almost all security measures. However, now the level of craziness has gone to a whole new level. A Swedish hacker has devised a neat trick that makes him able to buy groceries or transfer money between bank accounts by just waving his hand. Yes, you heard that right.  Patric Lanhed , a software developer at DigitasLBi, implanted a small NFC (Near Field Communications) chip with the private key to his Bitcoin wallet under his skin. So How Does the Trick Work? So, while sending Bitcoin payment from one digital wallet to another, he just has to wave his hands against an NFC chip reader that will scan the data, and a custom software will confirm the authenticity of the key, triggering the money transfer. A proof-of-concept video demonstration by Patric and his acquaintanc

The arrest is the first major outcome since TalkTalk – the biggest phone and broadband provider in the UK with more than 4 Million customers – had suffered a serious data breach. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the investigating officers from the Metropolitan police's cyber crime unit (MPCCU) have arrested a 15-year-old boy in connection with the latest cyber attack on TalkTalk . The press release issued by the police said the boy was detained in County Antrim at about 4.20pm on Monday on suspicion of committing offences under the Computer Misuse Act. The Computer Misuse Act 1990 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, according to which any computer misuse offences like: Unauthorised access to computer material. Unauthorised access with the intent to commit further offences. Unauthorised acts with the intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of the computers, and other electronic devices. ...Are consi

The introduction of Open AI's ChatGPT was a defining moment for the software industry, touching off a GenAI race with its November 2022 release. SaaS vendors are now rushing to upgrade tools with enhanced productivity capabilities that are driven by generative AI. Among a wide range of uses, GenAI tools make it easier for developers to build software, assist sales teams in mundane email writing, help marketers produce unique content at low cost, and enable teams and creatives to brainstorm new ideas.  Recent significant GenAI product launches include Microsoft 365 Copilot, GitHub Copilot, and Salesforce Einstein GPT. Notably, these GenAI tools from leading SaaS providers are paid enhancements, a clear sign that no SaaS provider will want to miss out on cashing in on the GenAI transformation. Google will soon launch its SGE "Search Generative Experience" platform for premium AI-generated summaries rather than a list of websites.  At this pace, it's just a matter of a short time befo

Bitcoins are making their way, in Bits and Pieces. In a recent report The Hacker News (THN) had mentioned about banks adopting the Blockchain Technology from Bitcoins ; to create a safe and secure distributed ledger. Now, last week U.S. Commodity Future Trading Commission (CFTC) , has added Bitcoins and other virtual currencies to the commodities basket which previously includes Gold, Crude Oil, foreign exchange, and Stocks. CFTC is an oversight committee of the USA, established to protect the interest of the people who have invested in any of the commodities by ensuring the conduct of no malpractices. The commodity swaps are working according to the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA). BITCOIN - Commodity for the Conduct of Trade Implying which now the Bitcoins and other virtual currencies, considered as cryptocurrency earlier, are now known as commodities for the conduct of trade. Moreover, after being tagged as a commodity and making its entry into CEA by CFT

The Existing Infrastructure used by Financial institutions like Banks is Archaic, Slow, and Costly, with hardly any innovation in the past three decades. Nine of the World's renowned Banks, including JPMorgan , Royal Bank of Scotland , Goldman Sachs and Barclays , are collaborating with New York-based financial tech firm R3 to create a new framework based on Bitcoin's Blockchain. Yes, they are back in the game yet again, but this time officially! Blockchain — the public and decentralized ledger technology that underpins all Bitcoin transactions has been now recognized as " the future for financial services infrastructure ". The blockchain technology is a way of keeping records by listing the owner's name with all the previous and present transaction the client was involved. It is a public ledger where a list of all the transactions ever executed is maintained. The Banks are planning to develop and implement Blockchain-like Technology where distributed/shared

Remember  Mt.Gox ? Once the world's largest Bitcoin exchange… ...then in early 2014, Tokyo-based Mt.Gox Bitcoin exchange filed for bankruptcy saying it lost some 8,50,000 Bitcoins (worth $64 Million) to hackers and suddenly went dark with no explanation. Last Friday, Mark Karpeles , the former CEO of the collapsed Mt.Gox, was arrested by Tokyo Metropolitan Police in connection with the disappearance of Bitcoins worth £247 Million. Police believe Mr. Karpeles had accessed the computer system of the Bitcoin exchange and manipulated the outstanding balance to cover up fraudulent transactions. The company said at the time that 750,000 customers' Bitcoins and another 100,000 belonging to the exchange were stolen due to an unknown vulnerability in the company's software. While he is not yet been charged, the authorities are investigating his involvement in the stealing of Millions of dollars of the Bitcoin virtual currency when the exchange collapsed in 2014. Mt

Do you use your Real Identity online and think about being private? If yes, then you are insane. Ashley Madison , the popular online dating website with tagline " Life is short. Have an affair ", recently got hacked , reportedly exposing a sample of its users' account information and other personal data online. The hacker group, called itself ' The Impact Team ', is also threatening to release the real names and all associated data of its 37 Million cheating customers. There are also rumors that the team could sell the stolen data for lots of money, instead of revealing it all for free. This isn't first time when the customers of online hooking site are scared of being exposed, two months ago the sex life of almost 4 Million users of Adult Friend Finder was made available on underground market for sale for 70 Bitcoins ($16,800). Lesson we Learned from These Hacks The Ashley Madison hack raises serious questions about what these compa

Bitcoin Cloud Mining service Cloudminr.io has been hacked and its whole users database is on sale for 1 Bitcoin . The unknown hackers have successfully taken full control of the website's server and defaced the homepage of the website. Users visiting the website are greeted with a defaced homepage showing the partial database of around 1000 clients including their usernames and unencrypted passwords in completely plain text format. This clearly indicates that the company is not following the best security practices to secure their users private data as the passwords were not even hashed before storing into the database. Hackers offering around 80,000 users database for 1BTC The database of 1000 users shown on the website homepage is just a sample given by the hackers while they have compromised around 80,000 users database in total from the cloud mining service. The hackers are offering the entire database of thousands of users for the just 1BTC , w

Two former Federal investigators who helped to shut down the infamous black-market website ' Silk Road ' accused of fraud and stealing more than a Million dollars in Bitcoins during their investigation. Silk Road, an infamous online drug market that hosted more than $200 Million in transactions, was seized by the FBI in 2013, but during that period two of FBI agents took advantage of their position. CHARGES AGAINST FEDS The US Department of Justice indictment charges 46-year-old former Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) special agent Carl Force , and 32-year-old former Secret Service agent Shaun Bridges , with the following charges: Theft of government property Wire fraud Money laundering Conflict of interest MILLION DOLLAR EXTORTION Both Force and Bridges were part of Baltimore's Silk Road Task Force to investigate illegal activity in the black marketplace. The creator of Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, was arrested and found guilty of running the Tor-h

Thomas Jiřikovský , an alleged Owner of one of the most popular Darknet website ' Sheep Marketplace , ' has been arrested after laundering around $40 Million, making it one of the biggest exit scams in Darknet history. After the arrest of Silk Road owner 'Ross Ulbricht' in 2013 -- Sheep Marketplace became the next famous anonymous underground marketplace among Black Market customers for selling illicit products, especially drugs. But only after few weeks, Sheep Marketplace was suddenly disappeared and was taken offline by its owner, who had been suspected of stealing $40 million worth of Bitcoins at the time when Bitcoin market value was at the peak. Shortly after this Bitcoin Scam, a Darknet commentator ' Gwern Branwen ' doxed the owner, and the suspect was identified -- Thomas Jiřikovský as the owner of the black market website. Unfortunately, Jiřikovský forgot to hide his identity and residential address from the Internet, which was exposed by his Facebook

Evolution -- The largest Deep Web drugs marketplace, disappeared suddenly overnight from the Internet. But unlike Silk Road, there is no indication that the law enforcement took down the Evolution marketplace. The Darknet's most popular markets for drugs and bespoke carjacking services is mysteriously offline Wednesday with rumours circulating over the Internet that its own administrators may have just scammed its huge user base and stole $12 Millions in Bitcoin. The Evolution black marketplace opened in January 2014, and gained popularity after the shutdown of Silk ​Road and arrest of its unassuming founder, Ross U​lbricht , with a promise of less fraud. Like Silk Road , Evolution also dealt in drugs, as well as illegal weapons, counterfeit goods, stolen credit cards and guides to committing fraud. Evolution was only accessible through anonymity Tor network. At the time of its apparent vanish, Evolution was home to nearly 20,000 drug sales, far more than Silk Road

If you have recently installed or updated the popular BitTorrent client μTorrent 3.4.2 Build 28913 on your computer, then you read this warning post right now. Users of the μTorrent file-sharing service are complaining that the latest update of software used for torrent downloading is silently installing a piece of unwanted software called EpicScale , which is basically a Bitcoin mining software . Note: Story update has been added below. USER COMPLAINTS ON SILENT  INSTALLATION The Epic Scale , installed without the consent of users, is a cryptocurrency mining software that reportedly uses the combined computing power of users to generate Bitcoin income for BitTorrent company. The unwanted software slows down the host computers and is particularly harder to remove from the system. The Bitcoin mining software was recently highlighted at uTorrent's complaint forum where a member ' Groundrunner ' says: " There was no information about this during installation

A new Tails 1.3 has been released with support to a secure Bitcoin wallet. Tails, also known as the ' Amnesic Incognito Live System ', is a free security-focused Debian-based Linux distribution, specially designed and optimized to preserve users' anonymity and privacy. Tails operating system came to light when the global surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden said that he had used it in order to remain Anonymous and keep his communications hidden from the law enforcement authorities. Tails 1.3 offers new applications, updates to the Tor browser, and fixes a number of security vulnerabilities from previous releases of the software and specially introduces Electrum Bitcoin Wallet . NEW FEATURES IN Tails OS 1.3 Electrum Bitcoin Wallet Updated Tor Browser Bundle obfs4 pluggable transport KeyRinger Electrum Bitcoin Wallet is one of the major changes Tails 1.3 received. Electrum is a new open-source and easy-to-use bitcoin wallet that protects you fro

Cyber criminals have started targeting government enforcement of the Ransomware in an attempt to extort money. Recently, the police department of the Midlothian Village in Illinois has paid a ransom of over $600 in Bitcoins to an unknown hacker after being hit by a popular ransomware attack. The popular Ransomware, dubbed Cryptoware , disabled a police computer in Midlothian — located south of Chicago — by making it inaccessible through its file-encryption capabilities and forced them to pay a ransom in order to restore access to the important police records. The Chicago Tribune reported that the department first encountered Cryptoware in January, when someone in the department opened a spear-phishing email that pointed to the malicious software. Once opened, the email carrying the Cryptoware ransomware immediately encrypts the files on the computer and, in typical ransomware style, displays a message demanding money in exchange for a decrypt code that could free the

An all new anonymous online underground black market website, DarkLeaks , has been introduced on the Internet where Whistleblowers, blackmailers, hackers and any individual can trade/sell sensitive and valuable data/secrets anonymously in exchange for Bitcoin payments . DarkLeaks is a decentralized underground blackmarket which is built on top of the Bitcoin Blockchain technology and is available on the Internet to download as a free software package together with its source code published openly on code-sharing site Github . TRADE INFORMATION ANONYMOUSLY DarkLeaks underground black market website is masterminded by the members of crypto-anarchist collective System. " There is no identity, no central operator and no interaction between leaker and buyers, " the developers' statement says. " DarkLeaks is a decentralized black market where you can sell information ," according to the blog post about the new site. " It has a mechanism for trust-less authent

The Famous Internet entrepreneur and former hacker Kim Dotcom , who introduced legendary Megaupload and MEGA file sharing services to the World, has came up with another crazy idea — To start his very own Internet that uses the "blockchain". Just last month, Kim Dotcom, a German millionaire formerly known as Kim Schmitz , launched the public beta of its end-to-end encrypted video and audio chat service called " MegaChat ", which it says gives better protection than alternatives such as Skype and Google Hangouts. Now, his latest series of tweets referred to Kim Dotcom's supposed " MegaNet " which, he believes, would be immune to the global mass surveillance conducted by governments or corporations and would not be based on IP addresses. MegaNet would be a decentralized, non-IP based network in which the blockchain used by Bitcoin will play an " important role ". Decentralizing the Internet means to take the power of the Web

The most popular Chinese Bitcoin exchange BTER announced that it has been hacked on Valentine's Day and lost more than £1.1 Million-worth ($1.75 Million; one BTC is about $270) of the digital currency. The Bitcoin Exchange hasn't revealed more details about suspects behind the breach or how the cold wallets were compromised, except that 7,170 Bitcoin cryptocurrency was stolen from the company's " cold wallets ," a way of storing the digital currency offline. " All wallets have been shut down and withdrawals of unaffected coins will be arranged later, " the official website of BTER Bitcoin exchange states. Internet sleuths are already on the hunt to trace the missing Bitcoin. Because of the way the digital currency works, it is possible to trace any transaction or funds easily by using public available service, called " blockchain ." According to the announcement, the stolen Bitcoin cryptocurrencies were broadcast through the trans

A jury has found Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht  a.k.a Dread Pirate Roberts  guilty on all seven counts and faces Life In Prison for running an underground black market i.e.  Silk Road . Ross Ulbricht, a San Francisco 30-year-old web developer was arrested by FBI in a sting operation in October 2013 accusing him of being the criminal mastermind running Silk Road, where hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal goods were traded. Ross Ulbricht had claimed that he had built Silk Road, but he was not the site's notorious ringleader " Dread Pirate Roberts. " The trial went on for just over three weeks and today the jury of six men and six women charged Ross Ulbricht with seven counts including money laundering, drug trafficking and computer hacking among other things. " The supposed anonymity of the dark web is not a protective shield from arrest and prosecution ," according to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a statement after the verdict. Prose

We have seen a series of Ransomware tended to be simple with dogged determinations to extort money from victims. But with the exponential rise in the samples of Ransomware last year, we saw more subtle in design, including " Cryptolocker " that was taken down along with the " Gameover ZeuS " botnet last June. As a result, another improved ransomware packages have sprung up to replace it — CryptoWall . Ransomware is an emerging threat in the evolution of cybercriminals techniques to part you from your money. Typically, the malicious software either lock victim's computer system or encrypt the documents and files on it, in order to extort money from the victims. Since last year, criminals have generated an estimated US$1 million profits. Now, the infamous Cryptowall ransomware is back with the newest and improved version of the file-encrypting ransomware program, which has been spotted compromising victims by researchers early this week, security research