Tag Archive for: Amount

Amount in crypto stolen via hacking fell in 2023 but number of cases on the rise


SINGAPORE – The amount of stolen cryptocurrency from hacking may have fallen globally in 2023, but the number of incidents has risen, a report by blockchain research firm Chainalysis said.

The firm on Jan 24 said global funds stolen via crypto hacking plunged by about 54.3 per cent to US$1.7 billion (S$2.3 billion) in 2023 compared with the year before.

However, the number of individual hacking incidents grew 5.5 per cent the same year to 231, from 219 in 2022.

Hacking refers to the unauthorised access, manipulation or exploitation of computer systems, networks or information.

The report said cryptocurrency hacking has become a pervasive and formidable threat that has led to billions of dollars stolen from crypto platforms and exposing vulnerabilities across the ecosystem.

The drop in the amount stolen via crypto hacking in 2023 is largely because of a fall in decentralised finance, or DeFi, hacking. DeFi refers to a new financial system where transactions are made peer to peer on public blockchains.

“Hacks of DeFi protocols largely drove the huge increase in stolen crypto that we saw in 2021 and 2022, with cyber criminals stealing US$3.1 billion in DeFi hacks in 2022. But in 2023, hackers stole just US$1.1 billion from DeFi protocols. This amounts to a 63.7 per cent drop in the total value stolen from DeFi platforms year over year,” said Chainalysis.

The fall in the value and number of DeFi hacks come as DeFi operators become better at smart contract security, the report said.

Smart contracts are self-executing contracts on the blockchain, with the terms of the agreement directly written into code.

Ms Mar Gimenez-Aguilar, lead security architect and researcher at Web3 and blockchain security firm Halborn, said in the report that the rise in security measures in DeFi protocols is a key factor in lowering the number of hacks linked to smart contract vulnerabilities.

“If we compare the top 50 hacks by value lost from 2023 with those from previous years, there is a reduction in losses from 47 per cent of the total to 18.2 per cent,” she said.

Ms Gimenez-Aguilar said price manipulation attacks remained almost constant, with around 20 per cent of the total value…

Source…

Maze Ransomware Says Computer Type Determines Ransom Amount – BleepingComputer

Maze Ransomware Says Computer Type Determines Ransom Amount  BleepingComputer

A variant of the Maze Ransomware, otherwise known as the ChaCha Ransomware, has been spotted being distributed by the Fallout exploit kit. An interesting …

“exploit kit” – read more

A vigilante is putting a huge amount of work into infecting IoT devices

Enlarge (credit: Gammew)

Last week, Ars introduced readers to Hajime, the vigilante botnet that infects IoT devices before blackhats can hijack them. A technical analysis published Wednesday reveals for the first time just how much technical acumen went into designing and building the renegade network, which just may be the Internet’s most advanced IoT botnet.

As previously reported, Hajime uses the same list of user name and password combinations used by Mirai, the IoT botnet that spawned several, record-setting denial-of-service attacks last year. Once Hajime infects an Internet-connected camera, DVR, and other Internet-of-things device, the malware blocks access to four ports known to be the most widely used vectors for infecting IoT devices. It also displays a cryptographically signed message on infected device terminals that describes its creator as “just a white hat, securing some systems.”

Not your father’s IoT botnet

But unlike the bare-bones functionality found in Mirai, Hajime is a full-featured package that gives the botnet reliability, stealth, and reliance that’s largely unparalleled in the IoT landscape. Wednesday’s technical analysis, which was written by Pascal Geenens, a researcher at security firm Radware, makes clear that the unknown person or people behind Hajime invested plenty of time and talent.

Read 5 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Technology Lab – Ars Technica

Amount of Mobile ‘Madware’ Spikes in Google Play – Infosecurity Magazine

Amount of Mobile 'Madware' Spikes in Google Play
Infosecurity Magazine
We're not in Kansas anymore: The third quarter of 2012 saw a marked increase in Android adware, while new evidence surfaced suggesting that the Zeus-in-the-Mobile (Zitmo) banking trojan is evolving into a botnet. And, Romanian hackers are continuing to 

android botnet – read more