A Failed Attack on the Rainbow Bridge Caused a Hacker to Lose USD 8,000 worth of ETH

Alexander Salazar
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A Failed Attack on the Rainbow Bridge Caused a Hacker to Lose USD 8,000 worth of ETH

Alex Shevchenko explained that a security mechanism on the protocol allowed mitigating the attack within a short period. He suggested that the hacker help combat crime on blockchains like NEAR instead of stealing user funds.

Alex Shevchenko, the CEO of Aurora Labs, recently said a hacker lost 5 ETH in an attack on the NEAR protocol Rainbow Bridge. The executive reported that the criminal could not get hold of user funds.

Shevchenko explained that the mitigation of the attack occurred automatically within 31 seconds, thanks to their safeguard mechanism.

According to Chainalysis, that happened after hackers stole almost USD 2 billion from the DeFi industry in the first half of 2022.

Watchdogs Prevent an Attack on the Rainbow Bridge

The Rainbow Bridge, built by the NEAR protocol, allows transferring tokens between the Ethereum, NEAR, and Aurora networks. Shevchenko said it relies on trustless assumptions with no selected intermediaries to transfer crypto assets across chains.

However, the entrepreneur said hackers could not submit wrong information, as they need a NEAR validation consensus. That way, they are safe against the possibility of losing all their funds on the bridge.

He stated that those submitting wrong information must face independent watchdogs, which also guard the NEAR blockchain.

The Hacker Submits a Fabricated NEAR Block to Conduct the Attack

A hacker recently submitted a fabricated NEAR block to the Rainbow Bridge, requesting a so-called secure deposit of 5 ETH. He succeeded in sending the transaction to the Ethereum network, expecting the watchdogs to find it hard to react to the attack.

However, these challenged the malicious transaction, causing the attacker to lose his 5 ETH deposit, equivalent to around USD 8,000 at the time.

Shevchenko claimed that this occurred within only 31 seconds. The team verified that the situation was OK within one hour, following notifications about the strange activity.

The Rainbow Bridge suffered another attack on May 1st when it defended itself against an attempt by a hacker to steal funds. Shevchenko said that its design allows it to withstand that type of attack.

He added that Aurora has ruled out plans to improve security, as that would make the bridge more licensed and less decentralized. Instead, Ethical hackers received USD million from the protocol as a reward to help protect user funds.

Shevchenko told the cyber attacker that he should help combat cyberattacks instead of stealing money from users and struggling to launder said money. He would serve as a white hat hacker, helping improve the security levels of organizations.

Ether is trading at around USD 1,609 and has accumulated a 2.2% gain over the last 24 hours. While its daily trading volume is above USD 16.18 million, its market capitalization is about USD 193.55 billion, according to CoinGecko.

By Alexander Salazar

Zero-Day Vulnerability in General Byte ATMs Allows over 40 BTC to Be Stolen

Audy Castañeda
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Zero-Day Vulnerability in General Byte ATMs Allows over 40 BTC to Be Stolen

The security of the Blockchain ecosystem is again affected due to the large number of hacks that continue to be conducted, this time General Byte ATMs are the victims.

Hackers don’t stop. This time the victim was the General Bytes ATMs, from which about 40 BTC were stolen due to the existence of the Zero-Day vulnerability, which was not detected in the most recent audits carried out on the system, the technicians of the company claim.

To date, cryptocurrency thefts in different parts of the world exceed 2,000 million euros, an increase of almost 700,000,000 compared to the same period in 2021. The methods used are diverse, but hackers are always ready to detect any failure or vulnerability that exists in the networks to take control and steal everything they can.

Over 40BTC Stolen Due to General Byte Zero-Day Vulnerability

One of the companies that manufactures ATMs for Bitcoin is General Byte, who also provide everything related to the world of Blockchain. They are the second manufacturer worldwide with 8,832, just behind Genesis Coin, which has already distributed 15,000 in different countries. The company, which has its origins in the Czech Republic, also allows you to sell or acquire 40 types of cryptocurrencies.

This time, the servers were compromised in an attack on August 18 when the Zero-Day vulnerability was detected, giving criminals the opportunity to take on administrator roles, modify system settings, and transfer available funds. to a virtual wallet address, they entered at the time. It has not yet been specified how much the stolen amount is nor the number of ATMs involved.

Through the company’s blog, some details of how the operation took place were specified. They think the hackers searched for TCP ports 7777 or 443 to detect a gateway. Cloud servers were also involved in this scan, as well as physical equipment.

After they took over, they changed the default administrator and changed the transaction format, so any cryptocurrency in or out went to the address entered.

Vulnerability Unknown for General Byte despite Multiple Security Audits

The company said in the statement that they have carried out several security audits in the last two years and that none of them managed to detect this vulnerability that allowed hackers to steal money in Bitcoin from several of its users. They also explain that the attack came after they announced a campaign to help refugees from Ukraine.

At the moment, they are working on updating patches 20220725.22, and 20220531.38, which will allow their customers to seamlessly access resources and perform transfers without any inconvenience. Meanwhile, his blog reads a series of steps that must be taken on the devices before making any new transaction.

Some experts suggest that the attack could have been thwarted if the servers had been protected by a firewall, which would only allow connections to be made from safe addresses. Apparently, there are still several systems that are unprotected, which could give rise to new attacks by hackers.

Basic personal protection measures include keeping your computer up to date, using a secure browser, protecting email with good passwords, and having a data recovery plan in case important information is hijacked.

By Audy Castaneda

Arrest of Tornado Cash Developer Sparks Protests in Amsterdam

Audy Castañeda
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Arrest of Tornado Cash Developer Sparks Protests in Amsterdam

Defenders launched a petition asking for his release, which exceeds 2,000 signatures. Developers charge that “open source” is being criminalized and that if the case progresses “no one will dare to write and publish open source code.”

Days ago, a Tornado Cash developer was arrested in the Netherlands, accused of being involved in hiding financial flows and facilitating money laundering by mixing cryptocurrencies using the Ethereum Tornado Cash mixing service.

Two weeks after the arrest, around 50 people protested the arrest of Alexey Pertsev in Amsterdam’s Dam Square, claiming that his arrest could trigger damaging consequences for open source Blockchains.

Supporters of the developer of Tornado Cash launched a petition calling for his release, which exceeds 2,000 signatures. Alexey Pertsev’s arrest came two days after the US Treasury Department sanctioned Tornada Cash for “hiding criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering.”

The Release Petition and the Arrest Claim

The microsite with the release petition states the following:

“Alex is now being accused of creating open source code that was used by Tornado Cash, a project that is being investigated in the US and Europe. But a developer has no control over how their open source code is subsequently used… So the accusations against Alex threaten to wipe out the entire open source software segment.”

During his detention, authorities charged Alexey Pertsev with being one of those who orchestrated money laundering. The organization that made the arrest is the FIOD, a public entity that works against fiscal crime, which pointed out that this type of decentralized advanced technologies that are used for money laundering receive greater attention from their agents.

“He is suspected of being involved in concealing criminal financial flows and facilitating money laundering by mixing cryptocurrencies through the Ethereum Tornado Cash decentralized mixing service.”

Developers Fear Working with Open Sources

Another argument made by the defenders of the Tornado Cash developer is the publication of open source, rejecting that it should be criminalized since companies like Tornado Cash operate with an “open source” business model, which was originally designed for cases of fair use in string privacy.

“The development of a tool is not prohibited, but if a tool has been created for the purpose of committing criminal acts, for example, to hide criminal money flows. The accusations against Alex threaten to wipe out the entire open source software segment. Nobody will dare to write and publish open source code, nobody will invest in the segment if they could be responsible for the use of the tool they created by other parties.”

Tornado Cash was launched in 2019 and since then has distinguished itself by providing a decentralized privacy solution without “technical filters” based on Ethereum. The app was widely used to hide the tracking of stolen funds from hackers. So the United States began imposing sanctions on the app, restricting its use in the crypto ecosystem.

By Audy Castaneda

GLO, MATIC, and DOGE Could Lead the Best-Performing Cryptocurrencies in 2022

Alexander Salazar
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GLO, MATIC, and DOGE Could Lead the Best-Performing Cryptocurrencies in 2022

Cutting-edge investments like real-world assets, NFTs, and cryptocurrencies support GLO, which might see significant profits in late 2022. DOGE has been among the best-performing crypto assets, while its adoption as a payment medium might drive its price higher.

Many investors wonder which crypto assets will provide the best returns after the large influx of capital into the market in 2021. Uniglo (GLO), Polygon (MATIC), and Dogecoin (DOGE) have the potential to become the biggest gainers this year.

The value of the native token of Uniglo, GLO, increased by over 30% in July. While the Polygon native cryptocurrency MATIC rose by more than 10%, Dogecoin has gained popularity and will accumulate further gains.

The Factors Driving the Price of GLO Higher

Although Uniglo has existed only for a month, its success has made the headlines. A vault of municipal assets the company retains long enough to generate money supports the value of the GLO token.

Cutting-edge investments like real-world assets, NFTs, and cryptocurrencies support GLO, which does not rely too heavily on them.

This project started the pre-sale before its official debut, scheduled for mid-October. That has led many analysts to think Uniglo will generate significant profits in late 2022.

MATIC Is the Most Popular Altcoin in the Market

Polygon has had various deals this year, mainly creating Web3 projects with hedge fund manager Alan Howard, Draftkings, and Adobe’s Behance. It has collaborated with different industries and even worked with Instagram on NFT projects.

The project has completed over 1.6 billion transactions, with around 142 million unique user addresses and USD 5 billion worth of protected assets.

MATIC is trading at around USD 0.811602 and has accumulated a 5% gain over the last 24 hours. While its daily trading volume is above USD 347.80 million, its market capitalization is about USD 6.04 billion, according to CoinGecko.

The Reasons for DOGE to Be on the List

Shortly after the launch of DOGE, its value increased by around 300%, going from USD 0.00026 to USD 0.00095. That caused it to become one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the market, rising by over 8,600% between January and May 2021.

It remained among the best-performing cryptocurrencies in 2021, hitting an all-time high of USD 0.7376 and a market capitalization of over USD 700 million.

Many analysts expect a growing number of businesses to begin to accept it as a payment medium, driving its price higher. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, had already announced that his company would receive Dogecoin for its products.

DOGE is trading at around USD 0.068654 and has accumulated a 4.4% gain over the last 24 hours. While its daily trading volume is above USD 436.73 million, its market capitalization is about USD 9.10 billion, according to CoinGecko.

Even though other crypto assets might make significant gains next year, GLO, MATIC, and DOGE seem to be the most promising. Their robust fundamentals and excellent positioning could help them exploit the growing demand for cryptocurrencies.

By Alexander Salazar

Cryptocurrency Price Analysis 08/23/2022: What are the most interesting to watch this week?

Audy Castañeda
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Cryptocurrency Price Analysis 08/23/2022: What are the most interesting to watch this week?

After a disastrous week for bullish expectations, the market is trying to stabilize and we share with you our forecasts for the coming days.

This week has been unpredictable with the great correction that the entire blockchain market has suffered.

BTC, ETH, BNB, MATIC, and all the cryptos in the market are bleeding like they haven’t been seen for weeks. Today a “forensic” analysis of what happened is being carried out and we give our price expectations from now on which, although surprising, are still optimistic about a market recovery soon.

Weekly Crypto Market Price Prediction

That being said, we have a market in the red after practically a month of renewing green pastures and some charts in which the bulls had everything in their favor. Now things have changed, or hasn’t it been?

The setback in BTC is a huge setback. Despite the fact that at a technical level there were some signs of weakness in the recovery, especially due to the constant failed attempts to exceed the €24,000 barrier and the inability to stay above it when we reached €25,000, two clear signs that the price was unstable. However, at a fundamental level, there were also reasons for optimism.

We are now in a bearish scenario as we broke hard below the MA20 which had been our support for weeks. Right now the most logical thing is to expect a drop to the psychological level of €20,000, and if it breaks, we have to expect the worst and we could see BTC at this year’s lows of around €17,000.

Biggest Price Ups and Downs of the Week

This week we have many losers, and practically all cryptocurrencies are in the red, which is quite worrying. However, we give a summary of the percentages of losses and increases of the last month in the Blockchain ecosystem.

Cryptos in the Green

As we said above, do not expect spectacular numbers in this section, in fact, we did not even reach the three cryptos that we mention each week, because of the top 100, only 2 cryptocurrencies have managed to come out in the green in the last 7 days.

EOS (EOS +41%).

Chiliz (CHZ +13%).

Cryptos in the Red

This week we have spectacular numbers in terms of losses, in fact, we could make a top 10, but in order not to depress them, we limit ourselves to mentioning the 3 cryptos with the greatest losses this disastrous week for the market.

Celcius (CEL -40%).

STEPN (GMT -26%).

Filecoin (FIL -25%).

By Audy Castaneda

Bitcoiners and Altcoiners Should Work Together against Government Control despite their Differences

Alexander Salazar
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Bitcoiners and Altcoiners Should Work Together against Government Control despite their Differences

Maximalists think the government should ban altcoins, an attitude against the freedom principles of Bitcoin since the market should decide. Die-hard bitcoiners should compete with altcoiners, as they can learn much from the methods developed for other networks.

Some people like Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, recently discussed how to regulate Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies. The executive considers BTC as only a commodity, while all other cryptocurrencies are stocks.

Block instructor Roman Reher and other German crypto influencers requested that EU regulators accept that point of view.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulates securities with stricter licensing criteria than the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). If regulators addressed the claims of Saylor, Reher, and others, many cryptocurrency companies would face difficulties.

The Differences between Commodities and Securities

There is a clear difference between commodities and securities in the traditional world. Humans do not manufacture the former, found in nature like oil, gold, and other precious metals. Although wheat and rice are commodities, it is possible to grow or modify them genetically.

Corporations and government institutions issue stocks, bonds, and derivatives, which Michael Saylor considers securities. Those assets usually pay interests or offer investors other forms of financial compensation.

Depending on the jurisdiction, there are frequently imprecise differences in the definitions of these asset classes. It is hard to put Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies into these traditional categories due to their decentralized nature.

That has led Michael Saylor to say that it is impossible to trade Bitcoin, arguing that it is a commodity. He thinks that the authorities must regulate Ether and all other crypto assets strictly as securities if small groups of people control them.

The Risk of Being a Bitcoin Maximalist

Maximalists think Bitcoin should be the only cryptocurrency while the government bans the rest of the market. That statist attitude goes against the freedom principles of Bitcoin, as the market should decide instead of central authorities.

According to maximalists, BTC is not a security due to its alleged immutability. However, Bitcoin has had significant changes, like the introduction of SegWit and the recent Taproot upgrade.

Many coins and tokens issued over the years have aimed to make their founders wealthy. Among those not identified as fraudulent, some will never achieve the advantage of the first mover of Bitcoin.

Bitcoiners and Altcoiners Should Participate in Healthy Competition

Even die-hard bitcoiners should take advantage of the competition with altcoiners. For example, Rootstock, the sidechain enabling Bitcoin-based smart contracts, has learned much from Ethereum. In addition, the methods developed for privacy coins like Monero and Z-Cash might increase the privacy of Bitcoin.

It is wrong to try to beat altcoins and cooperate with government institutions to ban them. Maximalists should participate in healthy competition, trusting that it will strengthen Bitcoin.

Although a currency superior to Bitcoin may never emerge, it is necessary to recognize it when that happens. Instead of beginning battles between Bitcoin maximalists and altcoiners, they should combat governments and their monopoly money together.

Identifying fraudulent crypto assets and warning people not to buy them is crucial. However, bitcoiners and altcoiners should forget their differences and join forces against government regulation.

By Alexander Salazar

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