Per its Wednesday additions to its list of sanctioned individuals, the United States Treasury Department is targeting Monero (XMR) addresses. Russian nationals Dmitriy Karasavidi and Danil Potekhin have become the newest names on the specially designated nationals list. According to the Treasury’s announcement on the subject, the two engineered an elaborate phishing campaign targeting U.S. citizens in 2017 and 2018. Both parties had a number of cryptocurrency addresses including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH), as well as Zcash (ZEC) and Litecoin (LTC). Surprisingly, Karasavidi’s information includes a Monero address: 5be5543ff73456ab9f2d207887e2af87322c651ea1a873c5b25b7ffae456c320. Given Monero's famous built-in privacy features, this is a huge …

Privacy coins including Monero, Dash, Grin, and Zcash pose less of a risk of money laundering than other cryptocurrencies according to a report by a global law firm. According to a new white paper released by U.S. international law firm Perkins Coie, anti-money laundering (AML) measures taken by regulatory bodies worldwide have been sufficient to address any issues caused by privacy coins, and additional oversight may not be necessary. The paper cited coins fitting within the current financial regulatory structure used by the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS), Japan’s Financial Services …

According to a study published by cybersecurity firm, Aqua Security, cloud servers remain a major target for cryptojacking — a type of attack whose main motivation is to mine cryptocurrencies. The “2020 Cloud Native Threat Report” states that between the second half of 2019 and the first half of 2020, attacks of this nature surged by 250%. In total, 95% of the 16,371 attacks registered during this period were related to cryptojacking. The perpetrators of this type of exploit rely heavily on the use of XMRig, a well-known Monero (XMR) mining app, to deploy the attacks. Aqua Security explained: “Although …

Every Friday, Law Decoded delivers analysis on the week’s critical stories in the realms of policy, regulation and law. Editor’s note One of the most persistent myths about Bitcoin is its supposed anonymity. More properly termed pseudonymity, BTC wallets are permanently tied to their public keys. Most of you know that. But it took government investigators years of trying to corral Bitcoin transactions on dark web marketplaces like the Silk Road to figure that out. Now, however, blockchain analysis is a growing industry, catering to a range of clients including many of the most shadowy of government agencies. This was …

The United States Internal Revenue Service has offered a bounty of up to $625,000 to anyone who can break purportedly untraceable privacy coins such as Monero (XMR) as well as trace transactions on Bitcoin’s (BTC) Lightning Network. The official proposal, published last week, says the IRS will accept submissions in the form of working prototypes until Sept. 16. If accepted, applicants will receive an initial payment of $500,000. This grant will allow applicants to develop their prototype into a working concept over the next eight months. Once the pilot test is completed and approved by the government, a further $125,000 …

Cybersecurity experts at ESET published an in-depth study about a new malware named “KryptoCibule.” This exploit specifically targets Windows users with three methods of attack, including by installing a crypto mining app, directly stealing crypto wallet files, and replacing copy/pasted wallet addresses as a means to hijack individual transactions. According to the cybersecurity firm, KryptoCibule’s developers rely on the Tor network and BitTorrent protocol to coordinate the attacks. The malware’s original incarnation first appeared in December 2018. At that time, it was merely a Monero mining utility that quietly harvested user’s system resources to generate the currency. By February 2019, …

The overwhelming majority of crypto transactions do not include privacy tokens, with most traders choosing to move funds transparently rather than privately. According to crypto analytics firm Coin Metrics’ Sept. 1 State of the Network report, the combined daily transactions of three privacy coins, Zcash (ZEC), Monero (XMR), and Grin (GRIN), equated to only 6% that of Bitcoin (BTC), despite the coins offering substantially more privacy. “User apathy towards privacy is probably the biggest shortcoming of the current anonymous transactions systems,” the report stated. “Despite great technological advancements in crypto-currency privacy, uptake of privacy features and assets has been slow.” …

Privacy and anonymity are the primary benefits of cryptocurrency, yet due to the transparent nature of blockchain technology, crypto transactions are not as anonymous as some may think. Rather, Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies are pseudonymous, as each transaction on a blockchain network is transparent, making it possible to trace wallet addresses back to their source. For example, cryptocurrency intelligence company CipherTrace is capable of tracing several hundred cryptocurrency transactions by analyzing wallet addresses, exchange information and smart contracts. John Jefferies, the chief financial analyst at CipherTrace, told Cointelegraph that the firm is currently capable of tracing over 800 cryptocurrencies …

The crypto price surge since March has been accompanied by a wave of cryptojacking attacks according to new research published by cybersecurity firm Symantec. According to the company there was a 163% increase in browser-based cryptojacking activity in the second quarter of 2020. Cryptojacking had previously been in a steep decline from March 2019 due to the shutdown of the mining script maker, CoinHive. Symantec points out the increase in the last quarter coincided with a surge in the value of Bitcoin (BTC) and Monero (XMR), two cryptocurrencies often mined by the threat actors that rely on browser-based cryptojacking malware. …

Pressured by external forces, two Australian exchanges have begun to delist a number of privacy coins including Monero (XMR) and Bytecoin (BCN). On August 24, YouTuber Alex Saunders tweeted a screenshot of what appears to be an announcement from the Australian exchange, Coinspot. This announcement seemed to suggest that several privacy coins were going to be delisted by August 31: Source: Twitter. Another Twitter user alleged that CoinSpot was not the only one planning to delist privacy coins, claiming that Swiftx, another Australian exchange, was planning to do the same. On the same day, Chainalysis announced that it was partnering …

According to a study published by Guardicore Labs, a malware botnet known as FritzFrog has been deployed to ten millions of IP addresses. The malware has largely targeted governmental offices, educational institutions, medical centers, banks, and telecommunication companies, installing a Monero (XMR) mining app known as XMRig. Guardicore Labs explains that FritzFrog uses a brute-force attack on millions of addresses to gain access to servers. That’s where an attacker submitting many passwords or passphrases with the hope of eventually guessing correctly. After it gets in it proceeds to run a separate process named “libexec” to execute XMRig. “It has successfully …

Ransomware gang REvil, known also as Sodinokibi, claims to have mounted a successful attack against the U.S. wine and spirits giant, Brown-Forman Corp — but the company claims otherwise. The company is the official manufacturer of Jack Daniels whiskey. According to cybersecurity services provider, AppGate, the famous alcoholic beverages manufacturer did fall victim to an attack but refused to pay the ransom demanded by REvil. However, Brown-Forman Corp told Infosecurity-Magazine in a statement they had successfully prevented cybercriminals from encrypting its files. This does not necessarily mean the gang’s claim to have compromised the internal network and stolen sensitive data …