A number of people who invested in a cryptocurrency company are claiming that the company is scamming its users. The fund in question is called AMFEIX, which promised high-yield monthly returns to its users and supposedly raised more than $60 million in Bitcoin (BTC). At the end of June, Cointelegraph began receiving emails from AMFEIX users who had invested their funds into the project. These users claimed that there have been lots of pending withdrawal requests that have been delayed since May 2020. They also claim that the project's support team has been ambiguous in how it communicates with investors. …

YouTube’s legal team has argued the platform is immune from liability for cryptocurrency scams perpetrated as part of its video content or descriptions. Attorneys for Ripple and CEO Brad Garlinghouse filed a lawsuit against YouTube in April in response to the platform’s failure to stop XRP scammers and impersonators. Ripple argued that the platform benefits from the actions of the scammers by profiting from paid ads. But according to a July 21 update on Law360, lawyers for the video-sharing platform argued in a dismissal bid that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — which generally protects platform publishers from …

Mexican users of public cloud networks report a surge in cryptojacking and ransomeware attacks in recent months. According to El Economista, almost three quarters of Mexican companies that use cloud networks including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, report security incidents resulting in negative perceptions by citizens. Less than a third of the locals fully trust cloud network security. Ransomware attacks Security weaknesses allow threat actors to deploy other crypto-related attacks like ransomware, including a recent case where an oil company, Pemex, was targeted by the DoppelPaymer gang. The report says that Mexican companies have been reporting instances where unknown cybercriminals are …

A South Korean court has sentenced an unnamed 43-year-old man to two years and six months in prison for his participation in a $249 million crypto mining pyramid scheme. According to Yonhap Lee Sang-wook, the judge at the Incheon District Court who made the announcement, the crypto mining pyramid scheme is still under investigation. The indicted was allegedly a secretary of the illegal company from May 1 to September 23, 2017. No details were given about the magnitude of his involvement, nor the specific cryptocurrency involved in the fraud. Police said that he played an active role by sending fake …

Cities in China will soon begin testing a new Central Bank Digital Currency, or CBDC. Scammers are now taking advantage of this fact by impersonating “CBDC test” groups. According to Tencent QQ, criminals are promoting a scam that asks potential victims to open a new debit card. Victims are told they will receive a “significant amount of money” after an initial investment, generally starting around 10,000 yuan ($1430 USD). Each victim is promised that their investment will grow to 70,000 yuan ($10,023) within an undisclosed period. This scam seems to be appearing most frequently in the cities where CBDC tests …

Telecom, Argentina's largest telecommunications company, has fallen victim to a ransomware attack. Hackers are demanding $7.5 million in Monero (XMR) — an amount that will rise to $15 million if the company does not pay within 48 hours. Argentina's major telephone company, Telecom, just got hacked. Hackers requesting a ransom of $7.5 million in Monero. $XMR pic.twitter.com/AGNvAXh1cg — Alex Krüger (@krugermacro) July 19, 2020 According to El Tribuno, the ransomware attack, which specifically affected Telecom’s call center, took place on July 18. The ransomware was ultimately contained by the Argentinian conglomerate’s IT workers. In a statement issued to local media …

A new version of Russia’s major draft bill on cryptocurrency regulation does not include criminal offense codes as lawmakers are expected to hold the bill's second reading tomorrow. According to official records of the State Duma, Russia’s legislative body, the Duma’s Committee on Financial Market has proposed the second reading of the bill “On Digital Financial Assets,” or DFA, on Tuesday. In the Russian legislative system, each bill is subject to three readings as it passes the development from draft to adoption. While the second reading is designed to sum up amendments and proposals to the draft bill, the third …

Jan Marsalek, the former chief operations officer of Wirecard who went missing after his supposed trip to the Philippines last month to chase the missing 2 billion Euro in the company’s books, has been located in Belarus. Marsalek reportedly entered the Philippines via Manila before flying to Cebu City and then to China in June. Philippine authorities said there was no footage of Marsalek arriving in the city nor were there records of a flight leaving Cebu for China. Forged traveling tracks According to investigative reporting website Bellingcat, the former Wirecard executive’s trip to the Philippines was forged. Investigations have …

Igor Krasnov, Russia’s new Attorney General, says that cybercrime in Russia has surged 25 times over the past five years. Krasnov made the statement during a recent meeting devoted to fighting cybercrime in Russia, according to an official statement on July 17. Only 25% of cybercrime in Russia gets solved At the event, Krasnov outlined that there have already been 225,000 cases in the first half of 2020, a 92% increase in the same timeframe from 2019. The total number of Russian cases for all of last year was just 294,000, Krasnov said. He cited a number of crimes, like …

Cybersecurity experts are warning about a family of banking trojans that target Windows users across Latin America, but this trojan happens to focus on stealing cryptocurrencies. According to a report published by cybersecurity firm ESET, the malware is known as “Mekotio” and has been active since approximately March 2018. Since then, threat actors have been continuously upgrading the capabilities and range of attack, mostly known by targeting over 51 banks. But now the trojan is focusing on Bitcoin (BTC), instead of just stealing banking details. This implies that Mekotio is targeting individual users. Spain is also on Mekotio’s radar The …

Two Italian 17-year-olds were arrested for paying Bitcoin (BTC) to see children being sexually abused, tortured and murdered in live streaming. Local media Il Messaggero reported on July 15 that the deep web website viewed by the two also allowed users to pay extra to decide what torture the children would be subjected to next. Italian law enforcement explained: “Users that were able to reach those kinds of obscure environments are allowed to take part in acts of sexual violence and torture on minors, performed live by adults.” Livestreamed torture on-demand The services offered by the website have different costs. …

Crypto scammers responsible for what could be the largest ever hack on Twitter were able to succeed because individual employees have high levels of access to information and control on the platform. In a series of tweets from Twitter Support on July 15, the help center of the social media platform confirmed that hackers responsible for the massive breach of high-profile figures’ accounts had conducted a “coordinated social engineering attack” to gain “access to internal systems and tools.” “We know they used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf,” Twitter Support …