Most hacks are achieved through social engineering. Others through malware, often delivered by ads on major networks, including YouTube (see story below). Preventing social engineering begins with securing your phone number, which is used in many two-factor security schemes; use Google Voice or Signal and lock your SIM card, an option available in your phone's Settings or Security menu. To protect against malware delivered by ads, install a Pi-Hole on your local network to block banners, pop-ups, and whatever else.
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"One of Japan’s biggest cryptocurrency exchanges said that about $400 million in NEM tokens were lost after the coins were sent 'illicitly' outside the venue, spooking investors in a country that’s still wary of digital-token exchanges four years after the collapse of Mt. Gox."
"Global financial markets have longed for an end-to-end solution offering both the technology to secure digital currencies as well as the legal and compliance controls necessary to integrate into mainstream financial portfolios…"
A brief history of BitCon (Hackernoon, by Brian Yahn)
"With all the interest in crypto, the narrative returns. It creates the perfect opportunity for the market manipulators to offload their low-value CryptoKitties onto the unsuspecting public for a huge profit. Just when the public goes crazy and starts buying every Bitcoin they could get their hands on, the manipulators cash out."
Coinbase, exchanges ‘won't run’ Lightning Network – Andreas Antonopoulos (Bitcoinist, by Wilma Woo)
"They have a fully KYC/AML-ed customer on one end of their connection, but if they receive a payment that’s going to that customer over the Lightning Network, they have no idea whether that customer’s the final destination… If they receive one coming in from that customer, they have no idea if that customer’s the origin… Which means their KYC just fell apart – completely fell apart."
Why consumers can't keep driving the economy (WSJ, by Justin Lahart)
"Gross domestic product grew at 2.6% annual rate in the fourth quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. That was slower than the 3.2% it clocked in the third quarter and the 2.9% that economists expected."
Now even YouTube ads serve as CPU-draining cryptocurrency miners (Ars Technica, by Dan Goodin)
"YouTube was recently caught displaying ads that covertly leach off visitors' CPUs and electricity to generate digital currency on behalf of anonymous attackers, it was widely reported."
"In a recent report, software testing company Tricentis analyzed 606 software fails from 314 companies to better understand the business and financial impact of software failures. The report revealed that these software failures affected 3.6 billion people, and caused $1.7 trillion in financial losses and a cumulative total of 268 years of downtime."
"The most successful phishing attacks are now consumer focused, instead of business focused. The merging of business and personal email accounts is a major threat to corporate security."
Bitcoinity displays an aggregated order book from nine different domestic exchanges.
Decred developer Luke Powell discusses Decred and upcoming projects in an interview on North American Bitcoin Conference 2018.Youtube