On Wednesday, Nov. 28, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it was adding two residents of Iran – Ali Khorashadizadeh and Mohammad Ghorbaniyan – to its Specially Designated Nationals List. In addition to the usual identifying information such as physical addresses, email addresses and aliases, for the first time in the list's history, OFAC included bitcoin addresses associated with the listed individuals. Khorashadizadeh and Ghorbaniyan are being added to the list for their role in facilitating financial transactions related to the SamSam ransomware, which has hit more than 200 victims over the past few years. SamSam held the data of its victims – including corporations, hospitals, ports, universities and government agencies – hostage in exchange for bitcoin, according to the Treasury, and then laundered the money through online exchanges.
The Telegraph reported on Nov. 26 that the U.K.'s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has doubled the number of cryptocurrency-associated businesses it is inspecting over unlicensed operations. Responding to a Freedom of Information request by the publication, the FCA said it was looking at 50 entities that it "suspected" were offering financial services without its permission. In Bulgaria, authorities reportedly have arrested three hackers alleged to be involved in stealing $5 million in cryptocurrencies. Bulgarian gendarmerie seized cryptocurrencies worth around $3 million along with computers, flash drives and other hardware, a car allegedly purchased with stolen funds, and paper notebooks containing cryptocurrency account details. In Cyprus, on Tuesday a court granted a motion to withdraw a lawsuit against Alexander Vinnik, the alleged former operator of defunct crypto exchange BTC-e. Greece is currently considering France's request to extradite Vinnik, a Russian national, who still faces charges of fraud and money laundering in France and the United States.
On Monday, cryptocurrency payment processor BitPay announced that its open-source Bitcoin wallet, Copay, has been compromised by malicious code targeted at stealing users' private keys. In related news, according to a recent publication by Kaspersky Labs, botnets are increasingly being used to distribute illicit crypto mining software designed to secretly reallocate processing power to mine crypto and send proceeds to the attacker. And on Nov. 19, Trezor, a popular provider of cryptocurrency cold storage devices, warned that it has discovered instances of fraudsters selling counterfeit Trezor devices.
For more information, please check out the following links:
- The U.S. Department of the Treasury is officially adding crypto addresses to its individual sanctions list.
- S. Targets Iranian Hackers for Laundering Bitcoin in Connection to Major Ransomware Attack
- The following individuals have been added to OFAC's SDN List
- US woman pleads guilty to bitcoin ploy aiding Islamic State
- UK Financial Conduct Authority Investigates '50' Firms Over Cryptocurrency Non-Compliance
- Bulgarian Prosecutors Detain Three Hackers Allegedly Involved in $5 Million Crypto Theft
- Cyprus Court Withdraws Money Laundering, Fraud Lawsuit Against Alleged BTC-e Operator
- Fake Developer Sneaks Malicious Code into BitPay's Copay Wallet
- BitPay's Copay Wallet Compromised by Malicious Code, Firm Issues Advice for Users
- Botnets Are Being Repurposed for Crypto Mining Malware: Kaspersky
- Kaspersky: Cryptojacking Increasingly Popular Attack Vector for Botnets
- Trezor One Wallets Forgery Reveals New Techniques Used to Steal Crypto
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.