Cybersecurity

Lawmakers in the Central American nation’s Congress passed a bill late Tuesday that will eventually allow the famously volatile digital currency to be used for many aspects of daily life, from property purchases to tax contributions.

The cryptocurrency market plunged on Tuesday as Bitcoin tumbled by more than eight percent.

El Salvador’s President, Nayib Bukele, is proposing a Bill to adopt Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as legal tender in his country.

An analysis of the cyberattack on Colonial Pipeline found that the hackers were able to access the company’s network using a compromised VPN password, Bloomberg reported. The hack led to a ransomware payout of $4.4 million, and resulted in gas prices around $3 per gallon for the first time in several years at US gas stations.

The FBI is trying to get a list of IP addresses, phone numbers, and other information on people who read a USA Today article about the deaths of two of its agents (via Politico).

Nigeria’s Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has urged Nigerians to beware of a widespread malicious email campaign undertaken by a hacking group, Nobelium.

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has warned Nigerians to be cautious on new email-based attacks from Solarwindhackers.

The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) had warned Nigerians to beware of IGVM Ransomware, a file-encrypting infection that restricts access to data such as documents, images, and videos.

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is experiencing a “partial” outage this morning for its entire site and application. Additionally, both Coinbase and Binance are reporting issues specifically focused around withdrawals of Etherium and ERC-20 tokens this morning due to “network congestion.”

Consumers lost over $2 million in cryptocurrency to scammers impersonating Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk over the last six months, the Federal Trade Commission reported Monday.

Cloudflare, which you may know as a provider of DNS services or the company telling you why the website you clicked on won’t load, wants to replace the “madness” of CAPTCHAs across the web with an entirely new system.

Ireland’s health service said it was under a ransomware attack on Friday that forced it to shut down its computer systems.

The price of Bitcoin, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency, has witnessed a significant fall after Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, tweeted on Thursday that the electric vehicle maker would suspend car purchases using Bitcoin.

One of the largest pipelines in the US has been taken offline by its operator following a cyberattack. First reported by the New York Times, Colonial Pipeline, which carries 45 percent of the fuel supplies for the eastern US, said in a statement late Friday that it took “certain systems offline to contain the threat, which has temporarily halted all pipeline operations and affected some of our IT systems.”

Hoodlums suspected to be internet fraudsters have allegedly hacked the account of a company, Great Wall Exchange, and successfully transferred N78,852,881 from the account.

The Ransomware Task Force (RTF) yesterday unveiled its comprehensive guidance for battling ransomware, information security’s preeminent scourge.

It says the feature offers a “familiar and trusted” experience for users buying any of the numerous cryptocurrencies that the exchange currently supports, and using PayPal as an intermediary means you don’t have to give your bank account or debit card information directly to the cryptocurrency exchange. The feature will expand to other countries in the coming months.

The Android version of Google and Apple’s COVID-19 exposure notification app had a privacy flaw that let other preinstalled apps potentially see sensitive data, including if someone had been in contact with a person who tested positive for COVID-19, privacy analysis firm AppCensus revealed on Tuesday. Google says it’s currently rolling out a fix to the bug.

Washington, DC’s police department has confirmed its servers have been breached after hackers began leaking its data online, The New York Times reports. In a statement, the department confirmed it was aware of “unauthorized access on our server” and said it was working with the FBI to investigate the incident. The hacked data appears to include details on arrests and persons of interest.

The news of Chloé Zhao’s Oscar win for Best Director has been censored on social media and search engines in China at the direction of the country’s propaganda ministry, The Wall Street Journal reported. Zhao, who was born in Beijing, is the first Chinese woman and first woman of color to take home the Academy Award for directing. Nomadland also won Best Picture at Sunday night’s awards ceremony, and the movie’s star, Frances McDormand, won Best Actress.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies posted sharp losses on Friday, on concerns that United States President Joe Biden’s plan to raise capital gains taxes will curb investments in digital assets.

The value of the cryptocurrency market stood at $1.81 trillion on Friday, a 10.26 percent drop over the last day, according to data from coinmarketcap .com.