The security of your assets is critical, and lately, hackers have been trying some new techniques to either steal or scam, you out of your money. The Next Web made an article about the five new ways hackers are trying to take your assets from you, which you can find here https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/11/12/major-cryptocurrency-crime-trends/ but I will list a couple, in simple terms, before going into a stranger story that you might have seen cropping up. If you’d like to read in detail more about each of the following ways hackers are using, make sure to read the article shown above.
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Trojan horses
Everyone remembers the Trojan horse, Rakhni that would encrypt devices until the owner paid out in Bitcoin, but lately, it has made a return in a mutated form. Although, now it will first check to see if there is evidence that the infected device has Bitcoin-related files before encrypting it. If the device does not have any proof that it is used for cryptocurrency, malware will be installed on the device to divert computing power to mine cryptocurrency.
Phishing
This kind of phishing isn’t new, as it involves hackers tricking investors into using fake exchange sites that are posing as real ones. By trying to log into these mimic sites, they have obtained your information that they can then use to access your assets.
Botnets
Botnets are being used differently than they have been in the past. Instead of using spam to spread malware to control your computer remotely, botnets are now spreading malware designed to mine cryptocurrency, similar to what the trojan horse viruses are doing (when they do not encrypt the device).
The Bluff
This method The Next Web referred to as “Sextortion” although it kind of works in reverse from usual sextortion. This form will have the attacker contact the victim and tell them that through hacking they have obtained footage from their webcam of them performing sexual acts. The attacker will list a password of the victims as proof of the hack. However, often these passwords the hacker has obtained are old and no longer valid. The hacker then will blackmail the victim to either send Bitcoin or else the footage will be shared with the victim's contacts.
Mac OS Malware
Lazarus has still been at large; however before they were targeting Window based devices, now they have malware out for Mac OS. By tricking people to download fake cryptocurrency trading applications they gain access to their assets. I wrote another article earlier in the year about Lazarus and it’s frightening to hear that they’re developing new ways to attack us and our assets.
Now for the strange story that has been going around.
The Elon Musk Scam hits Target
Over a week ago a story made news that someone had created a fake Twitter account posing as Elon Musk, from Tesla and SpaceX, among other things. The phony account tweeted out that they would give out thousands in Bitcoins if people would give a small amount of Bitcoin to them in advance. Of course, after the Bitcoin was sent the hopeful applicants got nothing in return.
The story continued as this week, Target’s twitter account got hacked. The hackers kept the same story, however, as its coming from the official Target account, it would have been harder to discern the truth from the lie. Target quickly locked down their Twitter account once they realized it had been compromised.
Security is an ever growing battle, and as the attackers are getting more sophisticated, we will too. L-Tree is soon going to bring about a new way to stay secure as we’re introducing biometric authentication to the world of cryptocurrency. By using your biometric information as a way to access your account it will be harder for people to scam you out of your password, and since your finger-vein pattern is beneath your skin, it will not be easily copied. Although admittedly, if a famous figure tells you that they will give you many Bitcoins in exchange for 1 or 2, having better security cannot help you in these instances, as that is an attack of the mind. However, in all things, you can only do what you can do, keep your security up to date and stay vigilant.
-Written by James Hepburn