Smart Contracts | Breaking Cybersecurity News | The Hacker News

Cybersecurity researchers have revealed several malicious packages on the npm registry that have been found impersonating the Nomic Foundation's Hardhat tool in order to steal sensitive data from developer systems. "By exploiting trust in open source plugins, attackers have infiltrated these platforms through malicious npm packages, exfiltrating critical data such as private keys, mnemonics, and configuration details," the Socket research team said in an analysis. Hardhat is a development environment for Ethereum software, incorporating various components for editing, compiling, debugging and deploying smart contracts and decentralized apps (dApps). The list of identified counterfeit packages is as follows - nomicsfoundations @nomisfoundation/hardhat-configure installedpackagepublish @nomisfoundation/hardhat-config @monicfoundation/hardhat-config @nomicsfoundation/sdk-test @nomicsfoundation/hardhat-config @nomicsfoundation/web3-sdk @nomicsfoundation/sdk-...

Did you know it's now possible to build blockchain applications, known also as decentralized applications (or "dApps" for short) in native Python? Blockchain development has traditionally required learning specialized languages, creating a barrier for many developers… until now. AlgoKit , an all-in-one development toolkit for Algorand, enables developers to build blockchain applications in pure Python. This article will walk you through the benefits of building blockchain applications, why Python is an ideal choice for dApp development, how to set up your blockchain development environment, and how to start building secure blockchain applications in native Python.  Why build blockchain applications?  Blockchain application development goes far beyond creating a decentralized database and peer-to-peer transactions. It unlocks a new level of trust, security, and efficiency for various applications. Guarantee tamper-proof records: Blockchain creates an immutable and transpar...

Every week seems to bring news of another data breach, and it's no surprise why: securing sensitive data has become harder than ever. And it's not just because companies are dealing with orders of magnitude more data. Data flows and user roles are constantly shifting, and data is stored across multiple technologies and cloud environments. Not to mention, compliance requirements are only getting stricter and more elaborate.  The problem is that while the data landscape has evolved rapidly, the usual strategies for securing that data are stuck in the past. Gone are the days when data lived in predictable places, with access controlled by a chosen few. Today, practically every department in the business needs to use customer data, and AI adoption means huge datasets, and a constant flux of permissions, use cases, and tools. Security teams are struggling to implement effective strategies for securing sensitive data, and a new crop of tools, called data security platforms, have appear...