The US military I snow under threat according to cyber-security researchers who are warning that a powerful email ransomware malware is targeting their systems. The Emotet malware is used as an attack vector which allows Trickbots and ransomware attacks as we are reading further in the crypto news today.Last year in December we saw that the Emotet malware was the biggest threat and it seems that it remains that way since its main attack vector is through spam email campaigns that have malicious links or Microsoft Word document in it. By clicking the link or simply opening the document will download the malware to the computer and at this point, the malware will propagate itself by harvesting the email contacts and continuing the spam cycle. It can also analyze the regular contracts and respond to ongoing email threads which make it harder to recognize as a threat.Over the past few months, Emotet managed to successfully compromise a few targets in the US government and this led to an increase in infected emails that target the addresses with .gov and .mil which are the top-level domains in 2019. After the brief break for the Orthodox Christmas, the trend continued throughout the month. The malware can also mimic the email language and as an example, an email was sent targeting a staff member to the US Senator Cory Booker. This email contained signatures indicating that it originated from someone else that uses booker.senate.gov tag.The US Military got this kind of malware since Emotet is financially motivated according to the researcher Cisco Talos, ick Biasini. There are a lot of examples of Emotet being an initial infection vector that can be seen but then you can see a Trickbot is dropped and that’s followed by the ransomware. If you have seen there is a lot of this huge malware that can do a lot of harm and Emotet plays a huge role as well. The ransomware aims to access the encrypted systems’ data with operators demanding payment in crypto or bitcoin for the decryption key.The other malware in Check Point Research that was noted in the report for 2019 is the XMRig. This was an open-source software for hijacking the CPU resources for mining Monero and in many ways is really impressive that this malware rates highly.

The hack attacks on crypto exchanges are now becoming a norm according to a recent report by Chainalysis but this also means that the platforms are now much better prepared which explains why the total value of the stolen funds dropped in 2019 so let’s read more about it in the latest crypto news.According to the reports, the 2020 crypto crime report shows that 2019 saw 11 hacking attacks on crypto exchanges compared to the 6 ones in 2018 which was a record at that time. However, the hackers doubled their previous records in regard to how many platforms they reached and the amount of stolen funds is three times lower than it was in 2018. The charts show contributions of each hack to the total amounts stolen in a year and there was no major hack comparable to the Mt.Gox in 2014 or Coincheck in 2018. The total amount that was stolen from exchanges dropped to $283 million worth of crypto in 2019 and this figure is only half of the amount of the stolen funds from the Japanese Exchange, Coincheck.Chainalysis went through all kinds of hacks including those implementing the exploitation of technical vulnerabilities as well as those that only rely on social engineering or other forms of manipulation. Another important thing to know is that the report covered attacks that were related to exchanges only meaning that it ignored payment processors, wallet providers, and investment platforms. The largest crypto hack last year was the one against Coinbene where the Singapore-based exchange lost about $105 million worth of ERC-20 tokens. Binance, Upbit, and BitPoint were next, having lost more than $49 million, $40 million and $32 million worth of crypto.The hack attacks on crypto exchanges started after cryptocurrencies started gaining attention and becoming popular especially with the enabled anonymous transactions. Chainalysis monitored the movement of the stolen funds and figured out how the cryptocurrencies get liquidated and in most cases, the coins reached other platforms and were then converted to cash. The percentage of illicit services used as a liquidation tool in 2019 dropped to the lowest level in the past few years which suggests that the effects of the increased regulation are real.

The UK Tax Agency, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has now opened a contract that will procure all crypto and blockchain analysis software which intends to get information about tax evaders as we are reading today in our blockchain latest news.According to the news outlets in the country, the UK Tax agency is now doubling down on crypto tax evaders starting from next month. The HMRC is looking for a provider of the crypto-asset and blockchain analysis software that can track Bitcoin and other crypto transactions. The agency recently opened a $130,000 licensing contract that can acquire an analysis software to monitor and to trace crypto transactions. According to a statement by the agency, the tax office recognizes the payment options made available for the crypto as well since it is used by crypto criminals for tax evasion and laundering money. A piece of the statements reads:

 “Crypto-assets, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, provide a means to transfer value between interacting parties. These services are increasingly used for a range of purposes, from international money transfers, sales of digital services, paying staff and tax evasion and money laundering.”

The HMRC specified that the suppliers offering software that is capable of tracking privacy-focused digital currencies such as Monero, Zcash, Dash will be preferred and interested suppliers can start sending in their applications by Monday. The tax office stated that the decision to go after the commercial products comes because of the inability of free online tools and resources to accurately track the crypto transactions and value fluctuations in crypto. The office remarked:

 “Many of these crypto-asset transactions are recorded publicly in a ledger known as a blockchain. Whilst the transactions are typically public, the participants undertaking them are not.”

The HMRC aims to equip its Fraud Investigation Service and Digital Support and Innovation departments with its new crypto tracking software to bridge the intelligence gap and to focus on crypto trading and how it supports the criminal activity. The agency believes its FIS-DSI teams will achieve better results with this tracking software and they will also be able to attribute transactions to crypto companies providing crypto mixing scams:

 “We are seeking the provision of a tool that will support intelligence-gathering methods to identify and cluster crypto-asset transactions into linked transactions and identify those linked to crypto-asset service providers.”

In today's cryptonews, we can see that the major cryptocurrency exchange OKEx speaks at the 50th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos this week, promoting blockchain technology as the new vehicle in the global financial systems.As we saw, there were two presentations delivered by the OKEx Financial Markets Director Lennix Lai on January 22 at the Russia House 2020 and EmTech Investment Meeting 2020 - focusing their minds on the challenge of extending their financial services to the over two billion people worldwide who still remain unbanked.OKEx speaks at Davos and praises blockchain unlike ever before. The director Lennix Lai argued that a digital and decentralized financial system underpinned by blockchain and cryptocurrencies can be of mutual benefit both to the incumbents in traditional financial markets as well as the unbanked global population.The innovation of decentralized finance (DeFi), as OKEx speaks, is poised to "substantially lower" the operational costs for institutions. He also argued that it may bolster financial inclusion by serving areas that traditional banking fails to.

“We see the endorsement from global regulators. [...] We also see the volatility of Bitcoin getting lower, making it become a favorable alternative asset for mainstream finance. And the recent surge of DeFi reflects that people are starting to brace a free, open, permission-less financial system,” Lai noted.

As reported, the 2020 theme at Davos is “Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World." Some have construed this as the World Economic Forum and its response to increasing public discontent with rising inequality and the power of oligopolistic financial elites.OKEx speaks in Davos in the following days but it is not the only big crypto company which delivers a speech. There are a lot of influential personalities from the cryptocurrency world - as well as blockchain news experts who are hoping to see more updates and announcements about the underlying technology of crypto and how will it play out in 2020.Meanwhile, news from the market show that the biggest gainer in the top 20 today is Ethereum Classic (ETC) which managed to add 3.63% to its price of $9.30 at press time. After that, we can see TRON's rise by 2% which positioned TRX at $0.0172.