Security

Smominru Malware Hijacked Half-Million PCs to To Mine Monero

Published

4 months ago

August 8, 2019

M. Ali

Over half million Windows based PCs have been infected with Smominru malware that installs a custom version of XMRig is to mine Monero. This was revealed in a recent report that was published recently by Carbon Black Security.

Smominru also steals information from vulnerable targets ( including external IP addresses, internal IP addresses, domain information, usernames and passwords) and send it over to a command and control server (C&C or C2) owned by Smominru’s operators. Access to the hacked systems are being sold on Dark Web at a rate of $6.75 each.

Smominru operators are using different techniques to infect machines. They mainly rely on the use of the EternalBlue (CVE-2017-0144) exploit, but they’ve also deployed EsteemAudit (CVE-2017-0176), both aimed at taking over machines running unpatched Windows OS.

Smominru is not a new malware, it has been around for almost three years now. Last year, Smominru made around $2.3 million for it’s operators (source).

Exchanges

$50 Million in Cryptocurrency May Have Been Stolen From Upbit Exchange

Published

1 week ago

November 27, 2019

June G. Bauer

Multiple sources have claimed Upbit, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korean, may have been hacked after 342,000 Ethereum ($50 Million) coins transferred out of the exchange’s wallets to unknown wallet. The exchange platform went into unscheduled maintenance right after the transfer.

Cryptocurrency monitoring service “Whale Alert” has recorded the following transaction:

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 342,000 #ETH (49,848,273 USD) transferred from #Upbit to unknown wallet

Tx: https://t.co/HairAS3gee
— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) November 27, 2019

The above ETH transaction might indeed be a hack: the TX was sent with a gas fee of 1000 gwei (100x the price for a “fast” transaction). This person wanted to be 1000% sure the TX goes through ASAP. No exchange ever sends a TX with this fee.

The exchange have posted the bellow notice on its website:

This is a developing story, we will keep you updated about this alleged security breach.

Exchanges

Xera Cryptocurrency Exchange Hacked, Users Data Are Being Sold Online

Published

2 weeks ago

November 24, 2019

M. Ali

xera-exchange-hacked-data-leaked-darkweb

It seems that Xera cryptocurrency exchange’s user accounts have been stolen by hackers and put up for sale on the dark web. The hacked data includes KYC documents, usernames, email addresses, passwords and users crypto wallets. The leaked data is being sold on the dark web for around $300 USD.

A screenshot taken today from Toshka Market on the deep web.

The unknown hacker is selling Xera’s leaked data on Toshka Market, an underground marketplace that sells illegal items on the dark web. The item listing can be accessed using TOR browser and can be found at:

http://tochka3evlj3sxdv.onion/store/hackednet/item/09f3c081c3954621405324ea49a0cc21/

From what the hacker posted, we can tell that the leaked data includes Russian, European and Indians passports and IDs.

Xera exchange cryptocurrency exchange that was launched on Dec,2018. Xera exchnage has it’s own ERC20 token (XERA) that was offered as an ICO (initial Coin Offering).

Altcoins

Monero Got Hacked?: XMR Core Team Issues Security Warning

Published

2 weeks ago

November 19, 2019

M. Ali

Monero (XMR) core team posted a security warning on Reddit stating that GetMonero.org, one of Monero’s main websites may have been compromised at some point during the last 24h and argues users to check integrity of the files that were downloaded recently from GetMonero.org.

XMR team discovered the alleged security breach after some users noticed the hash of the binaries they downloaded from GetMonero did not match the expected one. Another Monero user has reported a similar issue on Moenro’s official GitHub.

A screenshot taken today from Monero GitHub

Monero Core Team will be publishing more information about this security incident, we will keep you updated.

What is Moenro (XMR)

Monero is the leading open-source cryptocurrency that was launched in April 2014, and focuses on privacy and decentralization. Monero uses an obfuscated public ledger, meaning anybody can broadcast or send transactions, but no outside observer can tell the source, amount or destination.

Every Monero transaction, by default, obfuscates sending and receiving addresses as well as transacted amounts. This always-on privacy means that every Monero user’s activity enhances the privacy of all other users, unlike selectively transparent cryptocurrencies (e.g. Zcash).