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Spam and phishing emails are a constant plague in our inboxes, but more recently, sextortion campaigns have also appeared on the radar.

This particular brand of fraud attempts to capitalize on how some of us view adult content -- a personal and private matter, and one of which we would not necessarily want contacts such as friends or family to know about, or to become acquainted with our viewing preferences.

Often, these emails will claim that someone has been watching you through your webcam at the same time you are watching pornography or live cams and they not only know what you have been watching and when, but have also obtained the contact information of friends, family, and co-workers.

Emails may also include a password from an online account, stolen through a data breach and published online in data dumps, to appear more authentic.

See also:France asks Apple to relax iPhone security for coronavirus tracking app development

Cybercriminals will then demand a payment from victims in cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin (BTC) or Ethereum (ETH) to stop footage of the victim apparently watching pornography from being leaked.

Given the adult nature of these threats, some recipients of sextortion emails do fall for this tactic and pay up. But where does the cryptocurrency go?

Researchers from SophosLabs, together with analysts from CipherTrace, decided to find out.

On Wednesday, the companies published an investigative report on a large sextortion campaign that was active from September 2019 to February 2020.

Millions of sextortion spam emails were sent during this timeframe. Victims were asked to pay up to $800 in BTC into wallet addresses owned by the fraudsters, amassing the cybercriminals roughly $500,000 -- 50.98 BTC -- during the scam's lifetime.

The scheme employed botnets made up of compromised PCs worldwide to send out spam. The majority of the emails were sent in English, but some were also sent in Italian, German, French, and Chinese.

The sextortion campaign appears to be a cut above most as the fraudsters used obfuscation techniques to bypass spam filters, including white garbage text blocks, random strings, and adding words in Cyrillic script to confuse scanners.

An example of the sextortion message is below:

The research teams analyzed the wallet addresses associated with the campaign which pulled in an estimated $3,1000 a day in proceeds. Wallets that received deposits were cycled every 15 days or so.

In total, 328 addresses were tracked, 12 of which were connected to online cryptocurrency exchanges and online wallet services -- many of which already considered "high-risk" as they do not impose Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, making them useful in money laundering.

Cryptocurrency exchanges including Binance, LocalBitcoins, and Coinpayments were also "unknowing participants" in cryptocurrency washes, in which funds are moved around to clean up dirty trails, according to the researchers.

Other transactions were connected to private, non-hosted wallets. In total, 316 transactions made up to three 'hops' from one original transaction address, ending up in places including the Dark Web Hydra Market and credit card dump marketplace FeShop. Funds were also sent to other corners of the underground criminal economy including mixers for conversion to other cryptocurrencies, cash, and services.

One wallet used in the sextortion scheme was also connected to a BTC transaction linked to the 2019 Binance hack.

"There were 13 addresses among the 328 passed to CipherTrace that did not have traceable outbound transactions," the report says. "But for the remainder, whoever was behind the wallets did not let their cryptocurrency spoils sit for long. Based on the date of the first input (when the first extortion payment transaction occurred) and of the last output (when the last of the value of the wallet's Bitcoin was drained), [there is] an average "lifespan" of approximately 32.28 days."

Tracking the funds from the sextortion campaign in the real world is a difficult prospect, not only due to the anonymization factors of wallets but also due to the use of IP masking and VPNs.

CNET:Senator asks Google and Apple CEOs to be personally liable for COVID-19 tracking project privacy

Out of all 328 addresses, CipherTrace was able to track the IP data of 20 addresses, but each of these was either connected to VPNs or Tor exit nodes. The majority of the deposits ended up in global cryptocurrency exchanges and the use of these solutions can bypass geographical restrictions, giving the teams little to work with when it comes to honing in on the true locations of threat actors.

"Given that some of the transfers were used to obtain stolen credit card data or other criminal services -- probably including more botnet services for sending spam -- the payouts from the sextortion campaigns are funding yet another round of scams and fraud," the researchers said.

TechRepublic:Security teams want new tools but lack the budget to experiment

Earlier this month, cybercriminals stole over $25 million in cryptocurrency belonging to Lendf.me. It is believed that a combination of security flaws and blockchain features were strung together in an attack that allowed the threat actors to repeatedly make withdrawals.

Three days after the assault, the cyberattackers returned all of the funds following the leak of an IP address during the attack and direct negotiation with the cryptocurrency exchange.

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This is what happens to cryptocurrency paid out in sextortion campaigns - ZDNet

Tether has replaced XRP, the native token of the San Francisco-based blockchain payment firm Ripple Labs, to become the third-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization.

Top cryptocurrency tokens by market cap as on April 22 | Source: Messari.io

The dollar-pegged stablecoin, which protects traders from the extreme volatility associated with Bitcoin and similar crypto-assets, saw its reported valuation surpassing $7.5 billion on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the size of the XRP market squeezed under $5.5 billion as its prices fell into negative territory on a year-to-date timeframe.

The rise in Tethers market capitalization followed a voluminous flight to cash in the first quarter of 2020. Data aggregator Messari wrote in a client note that demand for stablecoins, especially USDT, was as high as it was in the entire 2019, indicating that traders anticipate wilder price volatility in the rest of the crypto market.

The sentiment takes cues from the ongoing macroeconomic crisis caused by the Coronavirus pandemic. As equities and commodities crashed to their record lows in mid-March, they also prompted bitcoin and other digital assets to pursue a similar downward trajectory.

The crypto market capitalization on whole fell by circa $60.25 billion in March 2020.

Crypto market cap is recovering following global central banks stimulus programs | Source: TradingView.com

XRP was one of the victims of the March crash, falling 24.32 percent to close the month at circa $0.17. On the other hand, traders appetite for Tether, the topmost stablecoin, surged, making it the top crypto beneficiary of the Coronavirus pandemic.

The largest beneficiary of the March volatility was Tether, said Ryan Watkins, research analyst at Messari. Its fitting that the top 3 crypto assets now feature the top 3 verticals in blockchain technology: Money, DeFi, and Stablecoins.

At the same time, Mr. Watkins anticipated the demand for stablecoins to head higher as the world comes face to face with a US dollar shortage. He said USDT, as well as its competitors, including USDC and BUSD, could quadruple their growth in 2020.

With the announcement of Libra and the growth of stablecoins last year, many consider 2019 as the year of stablecoins, said Ryan Watkins, research analyst at Messari. But if trends from the past quarter persist, 2020 could very well give 2019 a run for its money.

Photo by Maico Amorim on Unsplash

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Tether Surpasses XRP to Become the Third-Largest Cryptocurrency - newsBTC

Leading cryptocurrency tax software firm TaxBit simplifies the process of filing taxes to just a few clicks for cryptocurrency traders. TaxBit offers cryptocurrency holders and investors a slew of robust services including the easy calculation of profits, losses, tax liabilities, and generation of IRS-compliant tax forms, to make crypto trading a pleasant experience for traders.

Filing taxes doesnt particularly rank high in the list of tasks one would ideally want to do. Add to it the element of cryptocurrencies, and the process starts sounding all the more cumbersome. Fortunately, TaxBit is here to relieve crypto traders from this ordeal.

Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, TaxBits is the only cryptocurrency tax software founded developed by industry-leading blockchain CPAs and cryptocurrency tax attorneys. A leader in the cryptocurrency tax software space, TaxBit provides tax solutions for more than 4,200 cryptocurrencies, equities, commodities, and all fiat currencies.

TaxBit reduces the process of filing taxes to just a few clicks. TaxBit enables its users to connect their exchanges via its read-only API keys to the software in less than a minute. This rapid process allows TaxBit to pull the users entire cryptocurrency transaction history and feed the data into its tax engine.

Once the trading data has been fed into the engine, users can then see the real-time tax impact of their digital currency transactions. They can also download their yearly tax reporting forms to facilitate quick tax filing with the tax regulators.

As mentioned earlier, TaxBits innovative user interface has been carefully designed by top blockchain CPAs and cryptocurrency tax attorneys. TaxBits cryptocurrency tax engine holds the capacity to process millions of transactions with the highest accuracy.

Most notably, TaxBit takes immense pride in providing a fully immutable cryptocurrency tax audit trail to its users. This essentially means that during an audit, the users CPA or IRS investigator can narrow-down into any single transaction to determine how exactly their cost-basis and subsequent gains or losses were calculated.

The tax software provides its users with a suite of ready portfolio analytics tools that can help them track the performance of their crypto holdings throughout the year. Thanks to its dynamic tax-reporting mechanism, TaxBit displays users real-time portfolio metrics as and when they trade rather than producing a tax-form at the end of the financial year.

Additionally, TaxBit gives its users the option to calculate individual tax rates both federal and each state for their gains or losses so they can have a fair idea about the estimated total tax liability or refund.

Last but not the least, with TaxBit, users can generate one-click IRS 8949 cryptocurrency tax forms. TaxBit users are only required to connect their exchanges to the software to generate and download the IRS cryptocurrency tax forms in their account. Its Plus and Pro plans allow users to retrospectively amend prior years (up to 2014) tax forms for cryptocurrency transactions.

TaxBit treats user security and privacy with the utmost respect. This shows in its various security mechanisms reviews to date.

As TaxBit only gains access to read-only API keys, the platform, essentially, has access to view a users crypto transactions and not their actual digital assets. Basically, it means that TaxBit has absolutely zero access to view a users crypto portfolio or any data pertaining to their actual crypto holdings.

This privacy-preserving mechanism ensures that in the hypothetical event of a hack, the perpetrators would only be able to view a users transactions and not their total crypto holdings.

Its also worth highlighting that TaxBit stores no user personal information at all including their social security numbers or tax identification numbers.

TaxBit has cemented itself as a pioneer in the cryptocurrency tax filing space. Having partnered with various leading cryptocurrency exchanges, TaxBit enjoys goodwill in the rapidly growing cryptocurrency industry.

Backed by some of the most influential and reputable VC firms in the fintech and crypto space, including the likes of Peter Thiels Valar Ventures and Winklevoss Capital, TaxBit is playing a significant role in shaping the tax facet of the cryptocurrency industry as we know it.

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TaxBit Simplifies Cryptocurrency Taxes with Innovative Reporting and Audit Tools - BTCMANAGER

Short Insights

China will establish a national blockchain platform called (BSN) Blockchain Service Network on April 25, 2020. This was brought to notice a few weeks ago. It is believed that this move is initiated before the launch of Chinas government-backed cryptocurrency, DC/EP. And this initiative seems to be taken with much more seriousness than ever before.

There are indications that the crypto-yuan will be launched shortly. The majority of the experts believe that this could change the whole course for the global financial system. Drawing attention to what exactly is known at present and what it concludes, below are a few facts.

Xi Jinping, Peoples Republic of Chinas Chairman, last year had said that China has prioritized the development of blockchain-tech. This is for the acceleration of the industrys growth. It was already known at that time about China developing its own cryptocurrency since the year 2014.

And since the announcement of Facebook plans for Libra became known, China became much encouraged. The anticipation of Facebooks issuance of its own currency awakened the governments all around the globe.

China took hold of it as an incentive. Firstly, to enter into competition with the dollar in the digital payments market. And, eventually, to change the global financial system fully.

China set an example for other countries to understand what the future might hold. Therefore, its idea encouraged many countries to announce their own CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) development.

In April 2020, the first version of the digital yuan applications screenshots popped up online. The tests started among the white list of the Agricultural Bank of Chinas clients in four pilot regions including Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Chengdu, and Suzhou. This is known through the preliminary information. In April, Suzhou enterprises also plan to pay transport subsidies accounting for 50% to local workers with the new digital currency.

Few basic functions are revealed in the screenshots, and the interface shows similarity to Alipay and WeChat Pay. Both of the applications belong to Chinese payment platforms. Besides, according to what officials have stated, there is already a possibility to understand the majority of the cryptocurrencys functions.

Shifting the focus to what is unveiled about Chinas digital currency are the following points.

DC/EPs concept does not seem similar to a decentralized cryptocurrency as per what is known about the crypto presently. There are less significant differences in this new system in comparison to WeChat Pay or AliPay. The data structure of the blockchain will assure high traceability and control, for the government.

China might gain a lot of advantages to be the first to establish a government-backed digital currency. Also, Libra and Ton, both competing projects are facing hurdles along their way.

China will set an unprecedented example for other governments to follow. There is a likelihood that this can mark an entry into a new era where physical cash ends and the central bank cryptocurrencies begin. Alongside a much stronger likelihood that this will transform the international monetary system entirely.

See the article here:
Is Chinas National Cryptocurrency The Beginning Of A New Financial Era? - The Coin Republic