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Every time a new topic trends on the Internet, scammers take advantage of it. You must have heard of Bitcoin and how in recent days it has made some early investors millionaire overnight. Yes, the Bitcoin boom is back, and it's real — a digital currency that has just crossed a new milestone today. The current price of 1 BTC or 1 Bitcoin = US$2,850. An American con man took advantage of this boom in Bitcoin market to run bogus bitcoin mining schemes and earn millions of dollars. But the bogus schemes ended as the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has won a legal battle against two bogus, but now defunct, Bitcoin companies operated by Homero Joshua Garza — GAW Miners and ZenMiner. Garza is now facing a $12 Million (£9.2 Million) penalty for running the bogus schemes – what lawmakers have certified was a "Ponzi scheme." According to the SEC, Garza used the "lure of quick riches" in order to get people to invest in the bitcoin mi...

Japanese authorities have arrested a 14-year-old boy in Osaka, a prefecture and large port city, for allegedly creating and distributing a ransomware malware . This is the first such arrest in Japan which involves a Ransomware-related crime. Ransomware is a piece of malware that encrypts files on a victim's computer and makes them inaccessible until the victim pays a ransom, usually in Bitcoins, in order to get the decryption keys for the encrypted files. Ransomware has been around for a few years, but currently, it has become a major cyber threat for businesses and users across the world. Just last month, the WannaCry ransomware hit over 300,000 PCs within just 72 hours, wreaking havoc worldwide. The recent arrest came after the teenager, who is a third-year junior high school student, created a ransomware virus and uploaded its source code on the Internet, according to multiple Japanese media. The student, who admitted to the allegations, combined free encryption ...

The FBI arrested a 25-year-old NSA contractor on Saturday (3rd June) for leaking classified information to an online news outlet which published its report yesterday (5th June) — meaning the arrest was made two days before the actual disclosure went online. Reality Leigh Winner , who held a top-secret security clearance and worked as a government contractor in Georgia with Pluribus International, was arrested from her home in Augusta on charges involving the leak of top-secret NSA files to 'The Intercept,' an online publication that has been publishing NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden since 2014. The Intercept published a report on Monday, 5th June, based upon a classified document it received anonymously, which claims in August 2016, Russia's military intelligence agency "executed a cyber attack on at least one U.S. voting software supplier and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials days before [the] election." The ...

" If you want to keep living, Pay a ransom, or die ." This could happen, as researchers have found thousands of vulnerabilities in Pacemakers that hackers could exploit. Millions of people that rely on pacemakers to keep their hearts beating are at risk of software glitches and hackers, which could eventually take their lives. A pacemaker is a small electrical battery-operated device that's surgically implanted in the chest to help control the heartbeats. This device uses low-energy electrical pulses to stimulate the heart to beat at a normal rate. While cyber security firms are continually improving software and security systems to protect systems from hackers, medical devices such as insulin pumps or pacemakers are also vulnerable to life-threatening hacks. In a recent study, researchers from security firm White Scope analysed seven pacemaker products from four different vendors and discovered that they use more than 300 third-party libraries, 174 of which are...

Remember Ramona Fricosu ? A Colorado woman was ordered to unlock her encrypted Toshiba laptop while the FBI was investigating alleged mortgage fraud in 2012, but she declined to decrypt the laptop saying that she did not remember the password. Later the United States Court ruled that Police can force defendants to decrypt their electronic devices, of course, as it does not violate the Fifth Amendment that prevents any citizen from having to incriminate themselves. Forgetting passwords for your electronic devices could be a smart move to avoid complying with a court order, but not every time, as US judges have different opinions on how to punish those who do not compel the order to unlock their phones. On a single day last week, one defendant got six months jail for allegedly refusing to reveal his iPhone passcode, while a second defendant walks through after he claimed he forgot his passcode. A Florida circuit court judge ruled last week that child abuse defendant Christopher ...