security

Secure, Controllable, Decentralized Data Sharing: An Interview With bitYoga CEO Antorweep Chakravorty

Beyond its primary use case of powering cryptocurrencies, there’s no denying the priceless possibilities embedded in the underlying blockchain technology.  Coinfomania recently spoke to bitYoga CEO Antorweep Chakravorty. The Norway-based startup is a member of the EU-H2020 ARTICONF project and is piloting the adoption of blockchain technology for decentralized and secure data file sharing for the next generation of internet applications. He first spoke to us about how bitYoga got started. Antorweep was an associate professor of the University of Stavanger, Norway along with co-founder, Chunming Rong who was also

BitMEX Operator Gives $400K Sponsorship to Cybersecurity Nonprofit

HDR Global Trading, the operator of crypto exchange BitMEX, is giving a $400,000 grant to the cybersecurity nonprofit Shadowserver Foundation.In an April 6 statement on the company’s blog, HDR Global Trading announced that it would offer $400,000 to the organization over the next four years. The BitMEX operator will be acting as a member of the nonprofit’s new industry alliance for Internet security.Richard Perlotto, Shadowserver Director, thanked HDR for “their rapid response to our call for help” and emphasized the organization’s commitment to fighting cybercrime. The director is referring to

Vonage Co-Founder Launches Decentralized Videochat App to Battle Zoom

Jeff Pulver, a Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) pioneer and the co-founder of Vonage, has launched a decentralized application (dApp) that claims to provide the “most secure end-to-end business communications network” available.The move follows reports last week that rival videochat app Zoom exposed personally identifiable information and private conversations on the open web.Centralized data storage provides a centralized point of failureAccording to Pulver, the problem with existing communication solutions is that they route all business and personal data through one central point. This creates a huge security threat to confidential

Smart Contracts: Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

SafeMathIn most modern programming languages, safety in arithmetic operations is accounted for, so little thought goes into their implementation. However, in Solidity, overflows and underflows present a security risk.SafeMath is a library that ensures safe arithmetic operations by reverting the transaction if the bounds of an integer data type are exceeded.SafeMath example.The using statement indicates to the compiler that the contract is using functions defined in SafeMath for uint operations. Instead of using arithmetic operators (+, -, *, /, %), use the functions add(), sub(), mul(), div(), and mod(). Source:

Introducing the new Blockchain.com monthly newsletter — April Edition: “After the Dust Settles”

The quality of information and data in crypto has improved in recent years, so you may be asking why another monthly newsletter?There are still some big data and analysis gaps in crypto. Crypto markets are nowhere near as widely served with reliable research and data as traditional markets. Indeed, the March 12–13th crypto stress test demonstrated there are also still some very significant issues with the state of crypto exchange infrastructure.What you can expect from our monthly newsletterOur intention with this newsletter is to avoid repeating what you can find

Researchers Detect Ambitious Bitcoin Mining Malware Campaign Targeting 1,000s Daily

Cybersecurity researchers have identified a persistent and ambitious campaign that targets thousands of Docker servers daily with a Bitcoin (BTC) miner.In a report published on April 3, Aqua Security issued a threat alert over the attack, which has ostensibly “been going on for months, with thousands of attempts taking place nearly on a daily basis.” The researchers warn: “These are the highest numbers we’ve seen in some time, far exceeding what we have witnessed to date.”Such scope and ambition indicate that the illicit Bitcoin mining campaign is unlikely to be “an

Revised Crypto Laws in Japan to be Enforced Starting May 1

New laws for regulating cryptocurrencies in Japan will start to be enforced next month.The Payment Services Act (PSA) and Financial Instruments and Exchange Act (FIEA), two of the pieces of legislation passed by the Japanese House of Representatives last year to regulate crypto, were scheduled to come into effect starting in April. However, with unexpected delays, no enforcement date had officially been set until last week.In the April 3 edition of an official government newsletter, it was announced that the revised versions of the PSA and FIEA would be enforced

Africa Using Blockchain to Drive Change, Part Two: Southern Solutions

With pundits like Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey predicting that Africa “will define” the future of Bitcoin (BTC), cryptocurrency and blockchain technology continue to attract interest from both public and private establishments across the continent. Many of these adoption cases have been moving beyond finance, developing solutions targeted at issues like unemployment, identity management, health care and supply chain, among others.Amid the growing enthusiasm for crypto and blockchain technology in Africa, industry stakeholders interviewed by Cointelegraph identify a lack of education as one of the major hurdles standing in the way of more

Top 5 Cryptos Other Than Bitcoin This Week (Mar 29): XMR, BNB, HT, CRO, BSV

Consumer attitudes are changing towards banknotes and credit cards as reports suggest that the deadly coronavirus can spread by their use. The Bank of International Settlements (BIS) has, therefore, urged the central banks to consider developing central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). BIS believes that under the current circumstance, CBDCs will quickly gain prominence. However, it has warned that this move could have a “severe impact on unbanked and older consumers.”  Chamath Palihapitiya, the billionaire CEO of venture capital firm Social Capital, believes that the setting is right for Bitcoin (BTC) to