Researchers have published a new report on what they deem to be a “relentless” crypto mining botnet that lurks behind seemingly innocuous content such as JPEG images of Taylor Swift. The botnet — best known as MyKings (alternatively as DarkCloud or Smominru) — has been active since 2016, according to a Dec. 18 news release from Gabor Szappanos at SophosLabs. While all “underpatched, low-hanging fruit” on the internet — to use Sophos’ phrasing — has long been vulnerable to its attacks, recently the actors behind MyKings have allegedly added bootkit functionality, which makes it all the more resistant to detection …

Privacy-focused altcoin Monero (XMR) will see arguably its best-known advocate step down as the project’s lead maintainer in an upcoming reshuffle. In a blog post on Dec. 16, representatives confirmed that Riccardo Spagni, known as fluffypony in cryptocurrency circles, will in the future serve as a backup maintainer. His replacement will be fellow developer Snipa. Spagni moves to backup “Fluffypony has served the Monero project well over its five years of existence, and he will continue to remain active in the community as a maintainer,” the blog post read. Regarding the choice of Snipa as a replacement, the post added: …

The Monero Compliance Workgroup has stated that the Monero (XMR) network is not subject to U.S. Financial Crimes and Enforcement Network (FinCEN) guidelines regarding the Funds Travel Rule, in a Dec. 5 blog post. What is the Funds Travel Rule? The Funds Travel Rule requires financial institutions who are sending and/or receiving funds to store and transmit certain information about the transfer if it is valued at over $3,000 or equivalent amount. However, in its May 2019 guidelines, FinCEN states that: “If a given transmission protocol is unable to accommodate such information, the obligated person may provide such information in …

The New York Digital Investment Group LLC (NYDIG) has received approval from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to offer its shares to institutional investors, including registered investment advisers, their clients and other eligible investors. The fund aims to invest in cash-settled BTC futures traded on exchanges that are registered with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Though the increasing number of offerings by various companies targeting the institutional investor is a positive sign, the larger players have been slow to invest in the space due to regulatory concerns and high volatility. Crypto market data weekly view. Source: …

The Monero (XMR) network has been successfully upgraded to RandomX, a new mining algorithm that aims to be ASIC-resistant. On Nov. 30, the Monero community workgroup did a live stream on YouTube in which the upgrade took place at around the 58 minute mark. The new upgrade also introduced proof-of-work (PoW) algorithm, RandomX, which uses random code execution together with memory-focussed techniques to be resistant to application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) — devices optimized for professional mining operations. The upgrade is also reportedly optimized for general-purpose central processing units (CPU) in order to make the network more decentralized. As a result, …

A Grin (GRIN) developer funded by the Litecoin Foundation has suggested a solution for fixing the “Achilles heel of Mimblewimble privacy.” David Burkett, a developer at Mimblewimble’s (MW) privacy-centric coin Grin, started a thread on monthly updates detailing progress on both Grin’s development and the integration of MW’s privacy-focused technology into Litecoin (LTC). The developer announced the news on Twitter on Dec. 1: “I'll be posting monthly status updates detailing progress on the LTC MW EB (YAY acronyms). This is geared toward those interested in LTC development, but will also talk a lot about Grin++ changes, so it may be …

This is the second year in a row that November has turned out to be the worst month for Bitcoin (BTC) of the year. In 2018, Bitcoin’s price had plunged 36.18%. While this year, the decline has been 17.51%. However, December is an important month to watch out for. Since 2015, Bitcoin has moved more than 30% in December. If history were to repeat itself, traders should buckle up for some violent moves in this month. At least five Chinese cryptocurrency exchanges have halted or terminated operations in November. This is the latest crackdown on crypto trading in China since …

A group of hackers has launched a new cryptojacking campaign on Nov. 24, scanning as many as 59,000 IP networks to find Docker platforms that have API endpoints exposed online, business technology publication ZDNet reports Nov. 26. According to the report, the campaign is targeting vulnerable Docker instances in order to deploy crypto-malware to generate funds for the hacking group by mining Monero (XMR). The mass scanning issue was first discovered by American internet security firm Bad Packets LLC on Nov. 25. Troy Mursch, chief research officer and co-founder of Bad Packets LLC, said that exploit activity targeting exposed Docker …

Slovakian software security firm Eset has uncovered that cyber criminals behind the Stantinko botnet have been distributing a Monero (XMR) cryptocurrency mining module via Youtube. On Nov. 26, the major antivirus software supplier Eset reported that the Stantinko botnet operators have expanded their criminal reach from click fraud, ad injection, social network fraud and password stealing attacks, into installing crypto malware on victims' devices using Youtube. Stantinko botnet has been active since at least 2012 The Stantinko botnet, which has been active since at least 2012 and predominantly targets users in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan, reportedly uses YouTube channels …

Cryptocurrency exchange BitBay will delist privacy-centric cryptocurrency Monero (XMR) due to money laundering concerns. The exchange announced the decision on Nov. 25, noting that the delisting will take place on Feb. 19, 2020. The exchange explained its decision “Monero (XMR) can selectively utilize anonymity features among projects. This feature of XMR is a subject to end of transaction support. The decision was made to block the possibility of money laundering and inflow from external networks.” On Nov. 29, the exchange will already stop accepting XMR deposits. Due to the upcoming Monero blockchain fork, XMR withdrawals will not be possible from …

At present, the combined capitalization of the 2,022 crypto assets with a known market cap was roughly $222 billion. On Nov. 19, 2017, just weeks before the current all-time highs would be set for the price and capitalization of Bitcoin and the crypto market overall, the 985 tokens with a known market cap represented a capitalization of around $244 billion — a similar zone to where the market is at currently. However, with the capitalization of Bitcoin (BTC) having grown 15% from $134.1 billion to $154.6 billion during the 24 months following November 2017, more than twice as many altcoins …

The software available for download on Monero’s (XMR) official website was compromised to steal cryptocurrency, according to a Nov. 19 Reddit post published by the coin’s core development team. The command-line interface (CLI) tools available at getmonero.org may have been compromised over the last 24 hours. In the announcement, the team notes that the hash of the binaries available for download did not match the expected hashes. The software was malicious On GitHub, a professional investigator going by the name of Serhack said that the software distributed after the server was compromised is indeed malicious, stating: “I can confirm that …