Cryptocurrency enthusiast John McAfee's crypto trading platform was immediately targeted by hackers with a denial of service (DOS) attack following its launch, according to an official Twitter post from McAfee on June 12. According to the post, the web servers for the “McAfeeMagic” trading platform, were hit with a cloaked High Orbit Ion Cannon (HOIC) DOS attack. Cybersecurity website Imperva describes an HOIC DOS attack as stressing a network by “flooding target systems with junk HTTP GET and POST requests.” However, McAffee tweeted the same day that the website was operational again. According to the same post, the McAfeeMagic trading …

Cybersecurity company Trend Micro claims to have detected a web address spreading a botnet featuring a monero (XMR) mining component alongside a backdoor. The malware was described on Trend Micro’s official blog on June 13. Per the report, the firm attributes the malware to Outlaw Hacking Group, as the techniques employed are almost the same used in its previous operations. The software in question also holds Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) capabilities, “allowing the cybercriminals to monetize their botnet through cryptocurrency mining and by offering DDoS-for-hire services.” Trend Micro also believes that the creators of the malware in question are …

Napster creator Shawn Fanning’s new company Helium has released its internet of things (IoT) wireless hotspot devices with a blockchain-based incentives program, according to an official blog post by Helium on June 12. According to the post, a Helium Hotspot provides wireless connectivity to the Internet; one node on its own will cover about 1/50 to 1/150 of a city, according to the company’s research. The nodes are intended to support a network of internet coverage, one which is decentralized and powered by individual contributors. Contributors are rewarded by an incentives program on the Helium blockchain, which is powered by …

This article has been updated to correct that BitMEX is not Hong Kong-based. Peer-to-peer (P2P) cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX has reported an influx of attacks on user account credentials, according to an official blog post on June 11. In addition to covering a litany of best practices for user security, the cryptocurrency exchange stressed the importance of using two-factor authentication (2FA) in particular. The report summarizes 2FA as follows: “2FA, sometimes referred to as ‘two-step verification’ or ‘multi-factor authentication’, adds an additional layer of security to your account by requiring not only your username and password at login, but also the …

Beaxy has announced the launch of its cryptocurrency trading platform on June 11 in a press release shared with Cointelegraph. In the release, the company said it was now live in 43 United States states and 185 countries. According to Beaxy, an exclusive partnership with OneMarketData delivers trading capabilities across nine order types, with transaction speeds of 225,000 per second per trading pair. The launch follows two years of development, and the platform says it has more than 60,000 pre-registered users. Separately, in May, Beaxy CEO Artak Hamazaspyan had uploaded a statement to Twitter confirming that the exchange had been …

A portion of bitcoin (BTC) stolen from Bitfinex crypto exchange back in 2016 has been moved from hackers’ wallets to an unknown address on June 7, based on several tweets by crypto transaction tracker Whale-alert.io. The movement of stolen bitcoins has allegedly started earlier today at 06:08 AM UTC and involved of six transactions to date, totally worth about 185 bitcoin, or $1.5 million at press time. Five out of six transactions of stolen funds from Bitfinex hack 2016 on June 7. Source: Whale Alert Twitter The amount of recently moved stolen bitcoins accounts for about 0.15% of the 120,000 …

Hackers have reportedly compromised nearly 100 XRP Ledger wallets on cryptocurrency wallet service GateHub. The incident was announced by GateHub in a preliminary statement on June 6. In the statement, GateHub reveals that it was notified by some of its customers and community members that funds on their wallets had been stolen. The company estimates that hackers managed to compromise around 100 XRP Ledger wallets. Although the company did not initially identify any nefarious activities on its platform, it began an investigation on the matter, wherein it discovered increased application programming interface (API) calls coming from a small number of …

The current outlook for the cryptocurrency market has been downgraded from mildly bullish to uncertain, SFOX’s latest volatility report concluded on June 6. While the report acknowledged that crypto prices recovered substantially last month, the authors described overall sentiment is at a tipping point — and warned it was unclear how much of the growth is due to FOMO (fear of missing out). SFOX echoed recent comments made by Digital Currency Group founder, Barry Silbert, and said bitcoin’s (BTC) rally on Monday, May 13 may have been linked to developments in the trade war between the United States and China. …

Hackers from North Korea were behind a phishing scam targeting users of South Korean cryptocurrency exchange UpBit, Korean-language cryptocurrency news outlet CoinDesk Korea reported on May 29. According to findings by local cybersecurity firm East Security, the scam came in the form of an email sent to UpBit users requesting account information. The pretence was a fake giveaway, with the emails also containing a file called “Event Winner Personal Information Collection and Usage Agreement.hwp,” which would run malicious code when opened. UpBit had alerted traders a day before, warning anyone receiving an email from the address “[email protected]” to discard it. …

As the cryptocurrency market finds its legs in mid-2019, an unfortunate undercurrent persists vis-à-vis the floundering New Zealand exchange Cryptopia. Its one-time international popularity and solid reputation have already been ruined after the exchange dragged its feet on revealing a January hack, which cost its users somewhere in the region of $16 million in cryptocurrency drained from Cryptopia wallets. However, it was not long before new obstacles emerged in the way of an eventual settlement. Optimism surrounding the reimbursement of these funds to customers is now dwindling, as appointed auditing and liquidation firm Grant Thornton recently indicated “the process of …

United States sanctions incentivized North Korea to launch cyberattacks involving cryptocurrency, a senior FBI official told a conference. The comments were quoted by South Korean English-language news outlet Korea Herald on May 30. Speaking at an event organized by U.S. thinktank The Aspen Institute, Tonya Ugoretz, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division, said financial strain had driven North Korean state actors to cybercrime. As Cointelegraph reported, Pyongyang is suspected to be behind several major campaigns involving cryptocurrency ransomware and theft in recent years. These have ranged from global attacks, such as 2017’s WannaCry, to targeted moves against exchanges …

Sean Coonce, engineering manager at cryptocurrency custodian BitGo, announced that he has fallen victim to a SIM swapping hack in a Medium post published on May 20. According to the post, Coonce had over $100,000 siphoned out of his account on cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase in under 24 hours. In his post, Coone details SIM swapping, a practice that sees the attacker maliciously requesting a telecommunications carrier to redirect the traffic of a mobile phone number to a device over which they have control. This device is then used to obtain two-factor-authentication (2FA) codes which grant control over the victim’s online …