FBI Creates Fake Cryptocurrency to Expose Widespread Crypto Market Manipulation

The U.S. Department of Justice DoJ has announced arrests and charges against several individuals and entities in connection with allegedly manipulating digital asset markets as part of a widespread fraud operation. The law enforcement action – codenamed Operation Token Mirrors – is the result of...

Malicious shares can't be paused or stopped after creation, so users will continue use them

Lines of code Vulnerability details Impact In case if share creator is a malefactor he can try to do multiple malicious operations: Pump and Dump attack with price manipulation, artificially increase fees for NFT minting. Proof of Concept Both attacks described in my other reports and unfortunate...

North Korean APTs Stole ~$400M in Crypto in 2021

Vast amounts of cash sloshing around in cryptocurrency markets are proving irresistible for cybercriminals and scammers of all kinds. From basic financial pump-and-dump schemes to straight-up nation-state cybertheft, nascent crypto markets, and their investors – often with dubious understanding o...

Squid Game Crypto Scammers Rip Off Investors for Millions

Players in the Squid Game cryptocurrency market have been eliminated — at least their investment has — by what cryptocurrency watchers have called a classic “rug-pull” scam. When SQUID tokens were first released last week, they were valued at a paltry $0.01 but promised entry into a game with the...

Cryptocurrency Pump and Dump Scams

Really interesting research: "An examination of the cryptocurrency pump and dump ecosystem": Abstract: The surge of interest in cryptocurrencies has been accompanied by a proliferation of fraud. This paper examines pump and dump schemes. The recent explosion of nearly 2,000 cryptocurrencies in an...

Spammer Gets Over 4-Year Sentence

Alan M. Ralsky, the “Godfather of Spam,” was sentenced to 51 months in prison for long term involvement in pump and dump schemes. Read the full article. Washington Post...

The return of image-based spam

After a two year absence, IBM X-Force is reporting iss.net a significant spike in image-based spam. “Since March 20th, we have been witnessing a rebirth of image-based spam. At first, we saw a small trial of image-based spam, reaching 5-10%. Then, in late April, we saw another blast this time a...