On Feb. 12, San Francisco-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced that users of its Coinbase Wallet can now back up their private keys on cloud storage, namely on Google Drive and iCloud. The move has received mixed reaction from crypto community and cybersecurity experts, some of whom seem skeptical about the idea of storing private keys on centralized servers. Others are confident about the new feature, stressing that it entails encryption. A brief introduction to Coinbase Wallet, formerly known as Toshi Coinbase Wallet differs from the main app, Coinbase (or Coinbase.com). With the latter, the cryptocurrencies purchased by customer and their …

Major United States crypto exchange and wallet service Coinbase has given a $30,000 reward for reporting a critical bug on its system, according to data from Coinbase’s vulnerability disclosure program on HackerOne. The bug, which was reported on Feb. 11, earned the largest reward ever given out by Coinbase on HackerOne. The vulnerability report is not publicly available on HackerOne. While Coinbase has reportedly confirmed that the vulnerability has since been fixed, a spokesperson declined to specify any additional details on the issue, as reported by tech news website The Next Web on Feb. 13. Coinbase’s four-grade reward system implies …

Turkish police have arrested 24 people allegedly involved in a 13 million Turkish lira ($2.47 million) hack from an unnamed crypto firm in Istanbul, local government-backed media Daily Sabah reported on Feb. 12. Following a report of an alleged hack from a crypto-related company in Istanbul, the city police’s Cybercrime Department found that that stolen money was moved out directly from hacked accounts to accounts on other exchanges. The money was reportedly stolen in major cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) and Ripple (XRP). Turkish police further launched an operation to track the suspects, and discovered that the suspected individuals …

The New Zealand Police have reported that recently hacked crypto exchange Cryptopia is ready to be relaunched and resume operations, Auckland-based news agency The New Zealand Herald reports on Feb. 13. Detective inspector Greg Murton reportedly said that the main part of the work required by the High Tech Crime Group at Cryptopia's business premises in Christchurch has been mostly finished, claiming that Cryptopia management now have full access to their facilities and business premises. The inspector stated that the police are not preventing Cryptopia from resuming their operations, and reportedly declined to specify on whether or when charges might …

Cryptocurrency crime trends have been in the spotlight in recent weeks, but SIM swapping has been strangely absent in a number of reports on 2018. Cryptocurrency analytics companies CipherTrace and Chainalysis released two different reports focusing on the major crime trends in the space in 2018. While their data and findings sum up the biggest threats of the last 12 months, they’ve omitted the prevalence of SIM swapping in recent times. How it works SIM swapping is a relatively simple concept to understand, but the potential damage that can be done to an individual is scary, to say the least. …

$3.2 million in tokens stolen from New Zealand-based cryptocurrency exchange Cryptopia have been liquidated on major cryptocurrency exchanges, according to a tweet from blockchain analytics firm Elementus on Feb. 4. The hack, which is seemingly the first major security breach of 2019, was announced by the platform on Jan. 15. The exchange said that the hack occurred on Jan. 14. Cryptopia initially told users it was undergoing unscheduled maintenance, issuing several updates before officially reporting the breach. On Jan. 20, Elementus reported that as much as $16 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) and ERC20 tokens were stolen. The attack continued …

A new movement dubbed “GoxRising” is calling for a new, accelerated rehabilitation plan for creditors of the now-defunct Bitcoin (BTC) exchange Mt. Gox, with the long-term goal of rebooting the trading platform. The development was reported in an interview with its author, controversial industry figure Brock Pierce, by TechCrunch Feb. 7. As previously reported, roughly 24,000 creditors are thought to have been affected by Mt. Gox’s 2011 hack and subsequent collapse in early 2014, which resulted in the loss of 850,000 BTC valued at roughly $460 million at the time. Reimbursement of creditors is currently being handled under the stewardship …

Police in New Zealand are working with international law enforcement to track down hackers who reportedly stole over $16.1 million from local exchange Cryptopia, the police reported in a press release Feb. 7. Cryptopia, which suffered an attack beginning Jan. 15 and lasting around two weeks, has lost funds from tens of thousands of Ethereum (ETH) wallets. After confirming they were investigating the case Jan. 16, police revealed today that they are coordinating an international effort to track both the funds and perpetrators, in a report attributed to Detective Inspector Greg Murton. “The stolen cryptocurrency is being actively tracked by …

More cryptocurrency mining malware continues to target major corporations, hijacking victims to mine altcoin Monero (XMR), new research warned on Feb. 5. Findings from the Special Ops team at United States cybersecurity company JASK reveal a modified version of trojan Shellbot has become increasingly prevalent since its debut in November last year. The perpetrators, the company says, appear to be a Romanian hacker group known as Outlaw, a translation of the Romanian word “haiduc,” which also lends its name to one of the payloads the malware installs. “The toolkit observed [...] in use by the attacker contains three primary components: …

EOS.io, the company responsible for the development of fourth-largest crypto by market cap EOS, has handed over bug bounties for five critical vulnerabilities this year. Public activity on breach disclosure platform HackerOne revealed the bounties. On Jan. 10, $40,750 was awarded to five white hat hackers on the platform by EOS.io, and the day after, another researcher received a $10,000 bounty. Five of those bounties are equivalent to $10,000 each, which is the highest possible payout reserved by the company only for the most critical vulnerabilities. The Tron Foundation, the company behind the cryptocurrency Tron, also awarded four bounties in …

Manhattan’s District Attorney (DA) announced the indictment of an individual for stealing identities and funds, including crypto, via a process known as SIM swapping. The announcement was made in an official press release from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office on Feb. 1. The defendant, Dawson Bakies, has been accused of stealing the identities of over 50 victims in the United States, and also stealing funds from some of them. The 20-year-old man has been charged with identity theft, grand larceny, computer tampering and scheme to defraud among other charges in a New York State Supreme Court indictment. According the Manhattan …

After stealing $5 million in cryptocurrency from 40 victims through SIM swapping, 20-year-old Joel Ortiz, pleaded guilty to theft and accepted a plea deal of 10 years in prison as reported by Motherboard, a division of news outlet VICE, on Feb 1. Ortiz accepted the plea deal last week, according to Erin West, the Deputy District Attorney of Santa Clara County, California. He will officially be sentenced on Mar 14. Authorities reportedly state that Ortiz is the first individual convicted of a crime for SIM swapping. "We think justice has been served. And hopefully, this is a strong message to …