Empire Market, a major darknet marketplace for buying and selling illicit goods, has been offline for over 48 hours as of press time. Customers have begun to raise concerns about whether a distributed denial-of-service attack is causing the site to stay offline — or if something bigger is afoot. Twitter user Dark.fail, an anonymous journalist specializing in the Tor Project, suggested that the blackout “feels more stressful than [Empire market’s] frequent” downtime in 2019 when DDoS attacks kept the site offline for extended periods of time. Someone claiming to be one of Empire’s head moderators, named “Se7en”, issued an ambiguous …

Micheal O’Leary, the CEO of major budget airline Ryanair, has come out very bearish on Bitcoin (BTC). Recently speaking to The Times, O’Leary likened Bitcoin to a Ponzi scheme and advised investors to avoid it: “I have never, and would never, invest one cent in Bitcoin, which I believe is equivalent to a Ponzi scheme. [...] I would strongly advise everyone with any shred of common sense to ignore this false story and avoid Bitcoin like a plague.” O’Leary was referring to an apparent crypto scam, “Bitcoin Lifestyle,” which claimed to have his approval in a promotional campaign. A bogus …

The University of Utah’s College of Social and Behavioral Science confirmed that they were hit by a ransomware attack on July 19. According to a statement issued by the University, the gang left many computers inaccessible for several hours as staff took servers offline to prevent the malware from spreading to other machines on the school’s network. Following internal discussion, officials decided to work with the school’s cyber insurance provider to pay a $457,059 ransom in order to prevent a data leak. Staff from the university clarified that the insurance policy paid part of the ransom and they covered the …

Latin American crypto exchange Airtm has been appointed to redistribute $18 million seized by U.S. authorities to 62,000 healthcare workers. These funds were taken in relation to a corruption case involving Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela. According to Matt Ahlborg, data scientist at UsefulTulips, Coinbase-backed Airtm is well-known for being a censorship-resistant P2P exchange. He noted that Venezuelan users have long accounted for a significant part of Airtm’s customer database. Juan Guaidó, recognized by several countries as Venezuela’s rightful leader, also recognized Airtm for their efforts in the fight against government censorship. Guaidó then outlined his own plans for …

A spokesperson claims “there is no merit” to allegations against former Uber Chief Security Officer Joseph Sullivan, who is now facing charges of obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony. The Department of Justice (DoJ) alleges Sullivan tried to conceal the theft of private information for roughly 57 million users in a hack of Uber. It accused Sullivan of taking “deliberate steps to conceal, deflect, and mislead” the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by funneling a hush money payment of $100,000 in Bitcoin (BTC) through a bug bounty program. But in a statement to Cointelegraph, communications strategist Bradford Williams claimed …

Joseph Sullivan, a former Chief Security Officer at Uber, allegedly tried to cover up a 2016 hack of sensitive data by funneling a hush money payment of $100,000 in Bitcoin through a bug bounty program. The hackers had obtained the drivers’ license numbers of roughly 600,000 Uber drivers as well as private information for roughly 57 million users. According to an Aug. 20 announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), Sullivan has been charged with obstruction of justice and misprision of a felony in connection with the 2016 hack. The former CSO is accused of taking “deliberate steps to …

A month after the Texas State Securities Board took action against Mirror Trading International (MTI), South Africa’s Financial Services Conduct Authority (FSCA) is also investigating the company’s trading activities. According to the information MTI shared with FSCA, the company conducts high-frequency derivatives trades using bots on behalf of its clients. The financial watchdog said in a statement that the current business model of MTI requires it to own a financial service provider license but it does not seem to have one. The FSCA’s biggest concern was that MTI was promising its clients returns of as much as 10% per month. …

Ethereum Classic (ETC) accelerator Ethereum Classic Labs announced a plan to protect the blockchain from further attacks. On Aug. 19 the organization proposed taking immediate action in implementing long-term changes to the network architecture over the next three to six months. The accelerator decided to focus their efforts on improving the network’s security after recent attacks on the blockchain. The immediate measures proposed by Ethereum Classic Labs include a “defensive mining” cooperation with mining pools and miners to maintain a consistent hashrate and gain the ability to increase it when needed. A higher hashrate would render a 51% attack against …

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 …

The Tokyo District Court has issued Japan’s first ever crypto seizure. $46,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC) was expropriated in relation to a hack suffered by the Coincheck exchange in 2018. Kyodo reported that police have already seized the BTC, which was held by a doctor from Hokkaido and an executive from the Osaka Prefecture. The two men were arrested in connection with the hack. They are accused of knowingly purchasing the stolen NEM (XEM) through a dark web market, violating organized crime laws in the country. As Cointelegraph reported in January 2018, Coincheck suffered a record-breaking hack when $534 million …

Cryptocurrency exchange KuCoin has issued a warning to users regarding a fraudulent website using its branding in an attempt to steal cryptocurrency. According to the report, posted Aug 19, the website is offering false incentives to entice users to deposit digital assets. It further clarifies that the web address “https://c.yrsm.net/app.php/MzI1” has no relationship to the KuCoin Group and is not authorized to use its trademark or other intellectual property. Reminding users to be particularly wary of this type of scam, KuCoin stated that it does not organize any activities outside of the official platforms (kucoin.com and kucoin.io) without official notification: …