Day: July 25, 2017

Ether prices are down more than 11%, dropping below $200 amidst a wider market fall among the world’s top cryptocurrencies.

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Banca d’Italia warns Italian citizens against scriptural euros, an illegal form of “printing” money.

Reston, Virginia — July 25, 2017 — John Wise, CEO of Loci.io, worked as a data engineer and manager in top American auto racing teams. Over the years, he witnessed the creation of thousands of racing inventions, as well as the mind-numbing endeavor of patent filing necessary with every small improvement made. Outside of Loci, … Continue reading Loci Releases White Paper Detailing Plan to Innovate Patent Processing

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One of the more popular ways to protect one’s data and personal information on the internet is by using services called Virtual Private Networks, or VPNs. The robust security and relative anonymity they provide is great for law-abiding citizens, but also makes them attractive to criminals. Because of criminal utilization of VPNs, various governments have done their best to regulate and track their usage. Russia is considering doing the same.

VPNs Are Under Attack

There are a few governmental efforts to regulate or outright ban VPNs and proxies. China famously announced that all VPN users — both individual and organizational — would have to register with the government. It now appears that the Russian Federation is considering something like this for its citizens.

The current bill to ban proxies and VPNs has passed the lower house of Russian parliament, the Duma, and needs only to pass the upper chamber and be signed by President Putin. As it currently stands, the bill’s language is incredibly vague for businesses that require the use of VPNs to conduct business and protect their sensitive data as well as the data of their clients.

It is likely that this bill will be presented as a champion for law and order, and that the Russian government will feel that it will help curtail criminal activity. However, the vast majority of people who will be affected by this bill would be law-abiding citizens, as is usually the case with governmental overreach.

Senseless for Business and Freedom

This represents the latest attack on internet freedoms by the Russian government, and they show no signs of slowing down. This bill will likely pass, bringing with it a whole slew of problems. The first is the direct violation of the UN human right guaranteeing privacy to people of the world. Despite what anyone may tell you –government or otherwise — you have the right to a private life. Internet freedoms are personal freedoms, and should not be so callously attacked by fearful governments.

The idiocy of this bill continues to show through in considering its vague and unhelpful language. A lot of businesses, freelancers, and contractors will be put through the wringer thanks to this law. Many companies rely on tunneling their data for security reasons. Let’s take an IT contractor who is employed in Russia: he or she will not always be on site for their jobs, so connecting to a company’s intranet via a VPN only makes business sense. It protects the company from any data breaches and it protects the contractor from putting data at risk. The bill would make it impossible for the contractor to work in a safe manner.

Another example is a company that has many offices spread across different cities. Some of its data may be shared via private networks (VPNs) to ensure data integrity and security. Again, this bill would throw this entire business model into question. By banning the use of VPNs, many companies and contractors will be unable to do their jobs. Sudden and massive unemployment and/or loss of productivity would spell disaster for the already floundering Russian economy. It strikes me that the bill’s authors either did not do their research or are just dead set on violating individual rights.

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Malware often targets specific banks. Trickbot has proven to be a rather strange banking Trojan, as it mainly affects users belonging to a specific bank or financial institution in a particular region. The latest update for this infamous banking Trojan allows developers to target U.S. banks and their customers. The malware has received some upgrades under the hood as well.

Trickbot Goes After US Banks to Hit the Jackpot

Most malware developers aim to make a lot of victims in the United States. This is especially true for banking Trojans and other tools capable of stealing financial information. The U.S. is still considered to be the heart of global finance, and its banks process an inordinate number of transactions every single day. If a criminal were able to infiltrate that system and use it to his advantage, he would hit the proverbial jackpot.

That is exactly what the updated version of Trickbot attempts to achieve. Although this banking Trojan has been around for quite some time now, it never affected U.S. banks in the past. Most of its damage has been done through man-in-the-middle attacks outside of the United States. Going after the proverbial jackpot also comes with a whole new set of risks., begging the question as to why the developers decided to up the ante so suddenly.

New spam campaigns facilitated by the Necurs botnet have been identified over the past few months. All of these campaigns have tried to spread Trickbot malware to U.S. banks. It appears this updated version of the malware includes a customized redirection attack, among other new tricks. This new redirection attack is used to obtain login credentials, personal information, and even financial authentication codes. A lot of damage could be done if this information were to fall into the wrong hands.

Trickbot is currently distributed in the form of a Zip-archived email attachment that contains a Windows Script file that downloads and executes the malware in question. It is possible that other methods of distribution will become more prevalent over the coming weeks. It appears Trickbot is only targeting Windows machines right now, although it is still a bit too early in the game to tell for sure. This is only the beginning of a large-scale attack against U.S. banks and their customers.

It is important to note that this new version of Trickbot still targets non-U.S. banks as well, as that situation has not changed by any means. Every targeted region has its own customized redirection attack leveraging HTML or JavaScript injections. Visitors are redirected to malicious versions of the actual banking site where the malware successfully captures their login credentials and other sensitive details. Once the information is entered, users are apparently logged in and redirected to the legitimate page.

It is unclear how many people have been affected by this new version of Trickbot. This malware strain has the potential to cause a lot of havoc over the coming months and years, mainly due to its broad range of geographic targets. Users cannot tell the difference between the redirect website and the real version, making it incredibly difficult to spot the malware once it has infected a computer. This is a very troublesome situation, to say the least.

One innovation enabled by the Blockchain are provably fair games. Find out what they are and how they work.

State of Delaware officially turned Blockchain bill into law which recognizers electronic and Blockchain records for corporations and entities incorporated in the state.

An advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that as many as a quarter of computers are infected with cryptocurrency mining malware.

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Multiple European companies are experimenting with the idea of implanting microchips in their employees. This trend was not overly popular in the United States. That situation may change, as Three Square Market plans to implant RFID microchips in employees’ hands shortly. Although this is a marketing campaign more than anything else, it shows that there is a potential market for such implants.

U.S. Company Experiments With RFID Microchips

The partnership between Three Square Market and BioHax is worth following. Both parties will focus on “equipping” 32M employees with bio-friendly RFID microchips. These chips are implanted in employees’ hands and can be used to pay for food near one of the multiple break room food dispensers.  It is a marketing stunt, yet it also makes the Wisconsin-based company the first U.S. enterprise to implant RFID microchips.

All of these RFID implants will be provided to 32M employees free of charge. There is no requirement to have these chips implanted and it is completely voluntary. On August 1st, there will be a “chip party” during which these implants will be introduced to employees. It is a novel idea, despite the implants being limited to usage in the break room for now. It is likely that the features of these chips will be expanded in the future.

Being able to buy food and coffee by waving one’s hand is not something most consumers on the street would necessarily show an interest in. However, our society is gravitating toward an era where digital and contactless payments start to gain traction. Using RFID implants could take advance this, but most people feel uncomfortable when it comes to body modifications. This is especially true in the U.S., where biohacking is rather unpopular.

The chips in question will unlock new abilities over time. Opening access doors, logging in to work computers, unlocking work phones and potentially storing health information are just some of the possibilities. It is unclear whether all of these features will be unlocked, but they are certainly worth exploring as more time progresses. Three Square Market hopes that their initiative will convince other U.S. businesses to take a similar approach toward RFID implants for employees.

There is a strong connection between these implants and contactless payment cards. Both devices use the same NFC communication protocol to transmit payment information. However, the main difference is that one’s RFID implant cannot be forgotten, as it is implanted underneath the skin between thumb and forefinger. It is possible some employees may experience negative body reactions to this implant, but everything is done to minimize the impact as much as possible.

It is good to see at least one U.S. company paying attention to this potential new trend. Implanting RFID implants is a rather new “industry,” and a lot of research must be done in the coming years to make these procedures even safer. Before that can be done, more and more people will need to have their own chips implanted. It is unclear if these particular chips will be removed once employees leave the 32M company.

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