Blockchain News

Coinbase Targeted With Two Zero-Day Attacks Via Mozilla Firefox

Published

6 months ago

June 23, 2019

Coinbase targeted with two major zero-day vulnerabilities that affect the Mozilla Firefox browser were identified after hackers tried to reach the major crypto exchanges. As reported in the latest cryptocurrency news, the hackers tried to penetrate the coinbase infrastructure.

The security expert at Coinbase Philip Martin confirmed the news on Wednesday writing on Twitter that the malicious agent used an unreported zero-day vulnerability in an attempt to get to the employees of the Exchange. Mozilla formally addressed the vulnerabilities on June 18 and in the meantime, the Google Project Zero security researcher Samuel Gros discovered the bug in April this year.

Martin stated that the security team at coinbase is currently performing analysis of the hacker’s infrastructure and methodologies in an attempt to understand fully what happened to the exchange’s network more clearly and to try and find out who might be responsible.

Martin also pointed out that coinbase reached out and has started working with other unspecified crypto organizations that could have also been targeted in the new attack campaign. He noted that the customers of the exchange have not been affected by the incident and claimed that the exchange is willing to collaborate with other stakeholders. The good news is that the attack did not end up in disaster since the Coinbase employees were saved from having their accounts commandeered to steal cryptocurrency or worse-to steal users’ data. The attempted attack is another reminder however that the crypto exchange employees are targeted by hackers since they are the ones who hold the keys.

As noted in the coming altcoin news, the hacker did not manage to penetrate the exchange’s infrastructure but not every platform had the luck in recent years. Coinbase targeted by malicious hackers ended up fine but take a look at what Coincheck got after the major hack. Moreover, the experts now believe that they know how the Coincheck attack occurred.

Also, another one of the major exchanges despite Coinbase was Binance whose chief operating officer Changpeng Zhao noted on Twitter:

‘’ How did the hacker know our risk management rules so precisely.’’

The Binance crypto exchange has since optimized the security features of the exchange but the hackers will still continue to penetrate the infrastructure of the major exchanges in any possible weak spots.

DC Forecasts is a leader in many crypto news categories, striving for the highest journalistic standards and abiding by a strict set of editorial policies. If you are interested to offer your expertise or contribute to our news website, feel free to contact us at editor@dcforecasts.com

Up Next

Malta Island To Store Rent Contracts On The Blockchain

Don't Miss

Bitcoin Mining Giant Bitmain Will Resurrect Plans For IPOs

Stefan

Stefan is a full-time member and has been a Bitcoin Specialist for over 6 years. Providing daily news and updates for DC Forecasts.

Comments

Blockchain News

IEO Safety: Are They Better Than Initial Coin Offerings?

Published

6 hours ago

December 8, 2019

Stefan

The IEO safety is one of the most discussed topics in the crypto community and some wonder if IEOs are better than ICOs. We are about to find out in the latest cryptocurrency news below.After the ICO bubble in late 2018, the projects found it hard to find new ways to raise money and the security token offering markets started the new concept: the initial exchange offering. However, is this model really that different from the original? With the ICO market growing quickly to billions of dollars in collected funds in 2017, the last months of 2018 saw the fundings dry up pretty fast. About $74 million was collected in December which is less than what some stand-alone projects raised only a few months earlier.Unlike ICOs, Exchange offerings are launched in collaboration with crypto exchanges. Exchanges should be screening the projects that they only list only allowing legitimate projects on the platforms. The IEO safety is correlated with ostensibly selling the utility tokens which are very similar to those offered in earlier ICOs. With the changing regulatory landscape and its complexity, the lead US regulators have made clear that most ICO token sales are securities issuances. This poses a serious risk for both IEO issuers and contributors since investing in a project only to see it entering a fight with the SEC is not particularly expected to prosper.On a fundamental level, the formulas are the same so giving the project money to obtain tokens. However the exchanges give valuable service to the issuers and in addition, they provide a ready-made platform that solves one of the crucial issues for the crowdfunding initiatives. One reason that the ICOs dropped was the inability to market them. Google, Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook all banned ICOs in the first half of 2018.The digital ads provided a reliable medium to reach the outsiders since without them the ICOs were left to compete for the dwindling pool of existing enthusiasts. Exchanges, on the other hand, can offer a huge base of crypto traders that are spurred into action via promotional activities. The projects getting their tokens listed was also a major issue for ICOs and by creating an exchange offering, they guaranteed the ability to be easy to trade on at least one platform.

Blockchain News

Smashboard Blockchain App Will Help Sexual Abuse Victims In India

Published

7 hours ago

December 8, 2019

Stefan

Smashboard is a blockchain-based app that plans to help the sexual abuse victims in India by reducing the trauma associated with reporting incidents. Let’s find out more about this app in the coming blockchain news today.Smashboard aims to add more features in the future to help the victims. The team behind the app decided to help those who came out with the sexual abuse stories in the public in order to fight this awful crime and the movement suddenly spurred a lot of anonymous testimonies from victims who were initially silenced. The victims had to relive the trauma if they were to report the attack and often times they face hostilities from their families or friends but also often treaded as lies. To tackle the negatives of such scenarios, sexual abuse victims in India can now be helped with the blockchain-based app.According to the website, Smashboard states that it is ‘’an alternative social media network with special features for people of all genders fighting patriarchy.’’ The app wants to ease the life of sexual abuse victims by reducing the trauma that is associated with the crime. With the help of blockchain technology, the app will allow the users to create their private ledger of the crime they suffered and store it securely online. The users can gain the option to collect material that can serve as a journal or ‘’as time-stamped evidence in an encrypted personal space.’’What is even more important, the app allows the sexual abuse victims to find legal counselors of lawyers to interact with them privately. The victims can find journalists and even leave an anonymous tip for them. Smashboard offers all of these features with anonymity which means that sexual abuse victims won’t have to provide their true identities so that they can get comfortable with reporting the crime. This feature will help the victims who go under undiagnosed traumatic stress disorder and are stopped from seeking help after suffering from sexual abuse.Blockchain also grants anonymity on the platform and allows sexual abuse victims to note all the events of crime through a time-stamp. This feature is meant to aid the victims when they reported the crime to the authorities. The Smashboard app plans to integrate more features in the future to help the victims report the crime.

Blockchain News

Italian Copyright Authority Develops Blockchain Ecosystem

Published

16 hours ago

December 8, 2019

Stefan

One Italian copyright authority known as the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers (SIAE) has recently teamed up with Algorand in order to develop a new copyright management ecosystem on the blockchain. The system will be based on Algorand's newly launched blockchain platform which was viral in the cryptocurrency news before.SIAE had already started developing this project with the help of the University of Rome "La Sapienza" and the consulting company Blockchain Core. The Italian copyright authority has now decided to focus on the Algorand platform for its design public nature along with its high performance.Meanwhile, Algorand is known for using a pure Proof-of-Stake (PoS) protocol which guarantees decentralization, scalability as well as security. All of this make the company perfectly suitable for handling the swarm of metadata and transactions that are necessary in copyright management. Both Algorand and the Italian copyright authority are now enthusiastic and overly confident about improving the copyright management industry thanks to blockchain technology.The blockchain latest news today also show that the collaboration will strengthen the industry as well as its tools and services. Its main goal is to create new, more open and more accessible products, ramping up the efficiency of intermediation services.The head of the Italian copyright authority SIAE, Gaetano Blandini, has further explained and described the main goals of the initiative, stating:

“To explore the opportunities offered by technology, to imagine a future of solutions that guarantee greater efficiency and transparency to our members [...] Our collaboration with Algorand is part of a process of synergy and cooperation with major players in the fields of research and innovation, both on a national and on a global scale. Together we continue to write a story that began 137 years ago and that today embraces the future.”

The founder of Algorand, Professor Silvio Micali, also talked about the collaboration with the Italian copyright authority and noted:

“The collaboration between technology providers and companies projected into the future, such as SIAE, paves the way to great opportunities for progress towards economic models that promote inclusiveness, transparency, and frictionless transactions. I am honored by the fact SIAE selected the blockchain developed by Algorand, making it the backbone of its new initiative. I will be thrilled to witness the creation of these solutions, supported by the performance and features we implemented in Algorand 2.0.”

Blockchain News

Microsoft Azure Announces Blockchain Token And Data Services

Published

16 hours ago

December 8, 2019

Stefan

The blockchain enabled could service Microsoft Azure is in the blockchain news today for announcing the new tokenization and blockchain data management services. In a post which was published on the official blog, we can see that Microsoft Azure announces a blockchain token and a data manager.As it stands, the Azure Blockchain Tokens service is designed to simplify the definition, creation as well as management of compliant tokens which are built up to the latest industry standards. The firm also provides pre-built templates for common uses and hosts a gallery of templates which are created by partners, which are expected to be added in the future. As Microsoft Azure announces its new blockchain token and data service, the company went with a statement saying:

“With this latest offering, we can now offer customers an end-to-end experience of easily creating and managing tokens for physical or digital assets via Azure Blockchain Tokens (preview), in addition to managing the blockchain network itself via Azure Blockchain Service.”

The company also announced a blockchain data manager which is a new Azure Blockchain Service feature that is designed to allow its users to capture blockchain ledger data, transform, decrypt it (if it is encrypted) as well as deliver it to multiple sources. The announcement also notes that the new functionality simplifies "the complicated tasks of integrating existing applications with data sitting on a blockchain ledger."

"Azure Blockchain Service has seen fantastic adoption since launch, with customers using it to simplify the management and formation of their blockchain networks so they can focus on business logic," the post continued, highlighting the details of the service so far.

Earlier this week, the cryptonews also showed that Microsoft Azure announced the "Azure Heroes" which is a set of non-fungible blockchain tokens aimed at rewarding its developer community.As it stands, blockchain is seeing increasing adoption lately across a range of industries. Media sources came out with analysis a few days ago showing that the use of blockchain is getting more and more widespread. One of the latest updates is the technology used in combination with 3D printing in order to enhance aerospace supply chains.