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Swedish Bitcoiners targeted by armed criminals

November 9, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin

Swedish cryptocurrency proponent Eric Wall has flagged targeted attacks on well-known BTC community members.

Criminals in Sweden are specifically targeting prominent local Bitcoin figures, which appears to be the result of the ease of access to personal information and residential addresses in the country.

Reports from Swedish media outlets LT and Aftonbladet have linked separate robberies in Rönninge and Södertälje that appear to have occurred under the same modus operandi. Victims were tied up and physically abused to steal physical and virtual Bitcoin (BTC) holdings.

Prominent cryptocurrency proponent Eric Wall, who currently serves as a StarkNet Foundation board member, highlighted the incidents in an X post (formerly Twitter). Wall said the two assault cases indicate that Swedish criminals are actively looking to target Bitcoin users.

there's now officially a situation in sweden

this monday, a middle-aged swedish couple was tied up in their home and robbed by 4 masked men. they were physically abused and threatened with their own kitchen knives. they were tied up for hours and one had to be escorted to the…
— Eric Wall (@ercwl) November 8, 2023

“This Monday, a middle-aged Swedish couple was tied up in their home and robbed by 4 masked men. They were physically abused and threatened with their own kitchen knives. They were tied up for hours and one had to be escorted to the hospital via helicopter,” Wall wrote.

He noted that the purpose of the assault was to steal the couple’s Bitcoin before highlighting the link to a separate incident where “two well-known Bitcoin/crypto profiles were targeted in their homes by masked, armed men.”

According to Wall, the victims were subjected to violent physical abuse for hours in an effort to steal their Bitcoin holdings held in hardware wallets. He added that the first incident of criminals targeting Bitcoin users took place in 2022, when “one of Sweden’s most well-known Bitcoiners” had their apartment broken into.

Wall also believes criminals scour social media to identify and target Bitcoin or cryptocurrency users. He claims that a common theme of the attacks was that they took place shortly after individuals had livestreamed podcasts focused on Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies or mentioned the subject in public.

He also believes that Sweden’s Offentlighetsprincipen (Principle of Public Access to Information) laws, which give the public the right to request information, including residential addresses and tax records from the government, are becoming a means for criminals to prey on ecosystem participants.

“While the intention behind this legislation was to reduce corruption, it is not fit for modern society.”

Wall added that he left the country due to these laws and that Sweden “is probably one of the least safe countries to be active in the cryptocurrency sector.”

The Offentlighetsprincipen law also reportedly makes it easy for citizens to search for Swedish residents’ addresses as well as scour their tax records. This is being abused, as criminals can ascertain how much an individual has paid in income or capital gains tax and “size them up” as a result.

Cointelegraph has reached out to the Swedish Police Authority to ascertain further details of these incidents and if any arrests have been made.

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Crypto travel rule implementation ‘remains relatively poor,’ says FATF

June 26, 2023 Coin Telegraph

anti-money laundering

The United Nations body called on all member states to implement the Travel Rule “without delay” to close “loopholes” not currently protected by regulation.

A renewed call from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has asked countries to implement the “travel rule” to combat money laundering and terrorism financing activities enabled by cryptocurrencies.

On June 23, the United Nations body — whose role is to promote strategies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing — explained that “many” member states have failed to implement the rule.

The call comes after a series of FATF meetings at its headquarters in Paris.

The FATF plenary has concluded. Delegates of governments from around the world discussed a range of money laundering and terrorist financing issues.

See the outcomes of the plenary here➡️ https://t.co/s0nmYw1ca6 #FATFWeek #moneylaundering #terrorismfinancing #followthemoney pic.twitter.com/DTerSET5QT
— FATF (@FATFNews) June 23, 2023

FATF claimed “more than half” of respondents in a survey said they had taken no action to implement the rule:

“More than half of survey respondents have not taken any steps towards implementing the Travel Rule, a key FATF requirement to prevent funds being transferred to sanctioned individuals or entities.”

FATF urged countries to implement anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) measures on crypto-related activities “without delay” in order to prevent “criminals” from exploiting “significant loopholes” not protected by regulation.

A March 2022 survey by FAFT found only 29 of 98 jurisdictions at the time passed the requirements needed as part of the travel rules and a small subset of these jurisdictions had started enforcement.

The FAFT travel rule was implemented to target the anonymity of illegal cryptocurrency transactions. It was introduced in June 2019 and last updated in June 2022. A further update of the rules was agreed to by FATF members at the meetings.

Lack of regulation of virtual assets in many countries creates opportunities that criminals and terrorist financiers exploit.

The FATF is closely monitoring global implementation of its strengthened requirements for virtual assets.

Learn more➡️https://t.co/rDuXbjpJh7 #FATF pic.twitter.com/3HuZIbT4ZK
— FATF (@FATFNews) June 21, 2023

FAFT said it would publish a report on June 27 calling on member countries to implement its recommendations in order to close the loopholes which it says criminals look to exploit.

The report will make mention of North Korea’s illicit virtual asset activities, where stolen funds are then allegedly funneled into its Weapons of Mass Destruction program, FAFT said.

Illicit activities from other “emerging risks,” such as stablecoins, decentralized finance, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) and peer-to-peer transactions will also be discussed in the report, it added.

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DeFi exploits and access control hacks cost crypto investors billions in 2022: Report

February 13, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Cyber criminals used a variety of methods to siphon funds through hacks and exploits in 2022, amounting to over $2.8 billion in losses.

Cyber criminals used a variety of novel ways to carry out hacks and exploits in 2022, with over $2.8 billion of cryptocurrency stolen last year.

According to a report from CoinGecko using data sourced from DeFiYield’s REKT Database, nearly half of the total crypto stolen in 2022 was fleeced using diverse methods. This includes bypassing verification processes, market manipulation, ‘crowd looting’ as well as smart contract and bridge exploits.

The biggest hack of 2022 was carried out through an access control hack. Sky Mavis, the developer behind popular game Axie Infinity, saw its Ronin bridge hacked in March 2022, leading to $625 million being drained from the bridge between the Ronin chain and Ethereum network.

It was later revealed that North Korean hacking group Lazarus gained access to five private keys which were used to sign transactions from five Ronon Network validator nodes. This was how the hackers drained 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC from the bridge.

According to CoinGecko, access control exploit is carried out by attackers that have gained access to wallets or accounts through compromised private keys, networks or security systems. As Cointelegraph explored last year, cross-chain bridge hacks were prevalent in 2022 with 65% of funds stolen from these types of attacks alone.

The second largest exploit of 2022 took place in Feb. 2022, as attackers bypassed verification with a forged signature on the Wormhole token bridge before minting $326 million worth of crypto. Wormhole’s failure to validate ‘guardian’ accounts allowed hackers to mint tokens without needing the required collateral.

‘Crowd looting’ came to the fore in August 2022, as an insecure smart contract configuration on Decentralized Finance (DeFi) token bridge Nomad allowed users to withdraw an unlimited amount of funds. Hundreds of wallets took advantage of the exploit, seeing over $190 million drained.

Mango Markets suffered a market manipulation exploit in October 2022, as a hacker purchased and artificially inflated Mango (MNGO) tokens before taking out under-collateralized loans from the project's treasury. $116 million was stolen in the flash loan attack.

Reentrancy attacks, in which attackers make use of a malicious smart contract that drains funds from a target with repeated withdrawal orders, amounted to $81 million stolen last year.

Oracle issue hacks led to $54 million of funds stolen. This method sees hackers gain access to an oracle service and manipulate its price feed data service to enforce smart contract failure or carry out flash loan attacks.

Phishing attacks only amounted to $17 million of cryptocurrency stolen in 2022. This method was prevalent between 2017 and 2020, as attackers preyed on unwitting victims through social engineering methods to steal login credentials and private keys.

An oracle attack in February 2023 is the largest hacking incident to date of the new year. Hackers managed to manipulate the price of the AllianceBlock token through an oracle hack, leading to an estimated $120 million being stolen from the protocol.