Ever wonder though how gambling was really shown in pop culture like in Movies? Some of them might be realistic as they could hire someone from behind to manage a gambling scenes to make it real. But there could be movies that's pretty much boring.

I know that there could be threads about movies portrayed gambling and we could have discussed it already.

But are there gamblers who really been influence by gambling movies to go and try gambling for themselves here? Or watching a movies that relates to poker and says I want to be that guy?

In a twist of fate,

President Javier, who has made free-market policies his entire brand, posted an endorsement for a meme coin, $LIBRE, on X (formerly Twitter) late Friday night, and the coin immediately surged to nearly $5 per token from just $0.006, drawing in eager buyers.

Just six hours later, its value collapsed to $0.84, triggering outrage and accusations of a rug pull. The fallout was immediate. So now, Congressional opposition leaders, already critical of Milei’s economic policies, want him out.

https://www.cryptopolitan.com/javier-milei-to-be-impeached-for-crypto-rug/

I didn't invest on this meme coin nor I heard about it. But it seems that many have lost their money here and it sounds like the President of Argentina shills for this token and so it goes to a huge pump.

But we all know what happens next, as it collapses to less than a dollar.

Just very unfortunate if the news is real that the President is part of this rug pull scam.

A Europol-supported operation, led by German authorities and involving law enforcement from eight countries, has led to the takedown of the two largest cybercrime forums in the world.

The two platforms, Cracked and Nulled, had more than 10 million users in total. Both of these underground economy forums offered a quick entry point into the cybercrime scene. These sites worked as one-stop shops and were used not only for discussions on cybercrime but also as marketplaces for illegal goods and cybercrime-as-a-service, such as stolen data, malware or hacking tools. Investigators estimate that suspects earned EUR 1 million in criminal profits.

https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/law-enforcement-takes-down-two-largest-cybercrime-forums-in-world

So it's good to hear that Interpol has taken down of the two largest cybercrimes forums.

We all know that's where all the criminals peddle their software, and including in it is malware that have been delivering stealer and it includes all attacks on cryptocurrencies. So another one bites the dust and hopefully the individual behind this two forums will be caught and sent to prison.

So let's talk a look at Polymarket's prediction or what the gamblers are thinking the price of Bitcoin could be this January.


https://polymarket.com/event/what-price-will-bitcoin-hit-in-january/will-bitcoin-reach-200000-by-january-31-2025?tid=1737264036440

Majority has put a bet between $110k-$120k.

So what you do think guys?

Personally, I'm with the same with those who put a bet, and If I might add, I will be in the middle at around 115k for this month.

For sure we have heard and seen the Los Angeles wild fire that has ravage and damage a lot of properties, including historical landmarks and houses of famous celebrities. But it can me thinking though, what if this affluent neighborhood has a lot of Bitcoin investors even early birds who have tons of BTC in their hardware wallets sitting in their homes?

Or for those who had backup their private keys on metal seed storage? This could be a perfect example if they can really withstand extreme temperature. You can read reviews here: (https://jlopp.github.io/metal-bitcoin-storage-reviews/)

So maybe it's time to rethink and revisit our ways of backing up our mnemonic phrases and private keys.

In a series of Tweet from nation-state mining lobbyist Andrés Villagrán from Chile, he said that he had a meeting with Ministry of Finance and Senators about the potential of Bitcoin and the possibility that the country should adapt it as SBR (Strategic Bitcoin Reserve).



https://x.com/avillagran/status/1875345227579584641

Although this is going to be very tough as the Bank of Chile has rejected this idea.

The Central Bank of Chile has firmly rejected Bitcoin as a national reserve asset, citing regulatory and practical challenges. According to the institution, Bitcoin fails to meet the International Monetary Fund’s standards for reserve assets, which demand security, liquidity, and reliability. Legal restrictions further limit the bank’s reserves to traditional assets like gold and government-backed securities.

https://dig.watch/updates/chile-rejects-bitcoin-for-national-reserves

Today is the 16th anniversary of the day Satoshi Nakamoto launched Bitcoin:



As Satoshi included this message in the Genesis block.

“The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks.”

And it's also fitting as Bitcoin is now one of the best assets in the world.

Thanks you Satoshi.

https://x.com/BitcoinNewsCom/status/1874833029203689663

It just says it all, Bitcoin with a whooping $6.6 trillion in transactions.

And with this numbers, what do you think Bitcoin transactions relative to the global transaction volumes?

The only data that I can found so far is this, Global Purchase Volume Hits $42.7 Trillion As Economies Recover From Pandemic. And this data though is only for 2023.

And assuming that we have $6 trillion/$ 48 trillion (rough estimate for 2024), then Bitcoin will be roughly 8% of the global transactions, which is huge.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2013-12-31/bitcoin-is-a-high-tech-dinosaur-soon-to-be-extinct

Perhaps even back then, and to now, media they have been writing off Bitcoin, not just Bloomberg but like Forbes.
But for sure we wouldn't mind, as some of us is quietly accumulating Bitcoin throughout the years so who gives a f**k about this news media.
Or better yet, we should understand where they are coming from as they are into Gold and other other assets.

Here is block 875475: https://mempool.space/block/0000000000000000000039848db13649df25e64c877d889a331d569d7e198d76
I didn't go to see which specific transaction it is as this block contains ~4200 transactions.



https://x.com/foundryservices/status/1872629580487426221

I'm just curious though as how they know the individual who made this transaction? Addresses doesn't have a name unless the individual contacted them first? Could that be the case here?

Although this is not the first time that we have heard a Bitcoin mining company return or refunded a huge transaction. Self-Claimed Victim Says Hackers Paid the 83.6 BTC Fees.

A new malware variant has and they called it OtterCookie.



And it's reported to be created by again, the North Korean hackers group which is state sponsored. This time, the target is software developers with a fake interview. The threat actor will ask this developers to download and execute a code and once it's install in your personal machine or laptop, it will extract information including Bitcoin and Ethereum Private keys.

Here are the snippets of the code:



https://jp.security.ntt/tech_blog/contagious-interview-ottercookie

Initially though it seems that the North Koreans are targeting Japan, nevertheless we all know that they have attack a lot this year, even the latest Crypto exchange DMM Bitcoin Suffers $305M Hack.

So if you are a software developer, you need to be very careful about certain individuals asking you to download before the job interview as it might contain a malware that steals our crypto wallet.

https://x.com/MzwaneleManyi/status/1871159105848742196

If you are South African, you might be familiar with him, as a political figure. Although I'm not 100% agree with him about liquidating the debt thru Bitcoin, but still it's a good experiment as well for that country to make Bitcoin as national reserve and it seems to be the trend next year. And obviously, this is the effect of Trump 2.0 in the US.

[YTStealer Malware.]

Well in the last couple of years, we've heard that Youtube has been a target for cyber criminals as well. I think there were a period wherein a lot of accounts has been hack specially those who have a lot of subscribers and then used it to spread crypto scams, and it was a very effective method as it netted money for this cyber actors.

And so recently, there was a particular malware that is only target Youtube, called: YTStealer Malware.

YTStealer is a malware whose objective is to steal YouTube authentication cookies.

So you might ask the question, how is this malware spread?

Well, some of us who are in Youtube obviously, needs some video editing software and that's where the criminals spread it.

One of the groups is “Digital, Image, and Video software”. We found fake installers for OBS Studio, an open-source streaming software. Additionally, we identified a few video editing software installers which included Adobe Premiere Pro, Filmora, and HitFilm Express. In the audio category, we identified fake installers for digital audio workstation (DAW) applications and plugins. This included the DAWs Ableton Live 11 Suite and FL Studio. The plugins included the infamous Antares Auto-Tune Pro, but also Valhalla DSP, FabFilter Total, and Xfer Serum.

And then the next target is the gamers.

The second group is what we call “Game mods and cheats”. The games match popular games used by streamers and content creators. We identified fake installers for the FiveM Grand Theft Auto V mod, different “hacks” for Roblox, and cheats for Counter-Strike Go, and Call of Duty. A variant of the Valorant hack reported on by AhnLab earlier was also discovered. Valorant “gamers” were also targeted by a “Skin Changer”.

And in conjunction with this, the device drivers:

n this group, we found fake installers for tools such as “Driver Booster” and “Driver Easy”.

And the last group, and this is universal and "some" of us might fall in this category:

The last group is for other software and “cracks”. Here we identified anything from fake installers for security products, such as Norton Security and Malwarebytes to “token generators” and “cracks” for services such as Discord Nitro, Stepn, and Spotify Premium.

The overwhelming part of these fake installers are for pirated versions of the software, but we also see some fake installers for game mods. This finding should further stress the importance of only obtaining software from trusted sources. Only obtain software directly from the vendor or “modding” group.

For a detailed technical explanation you can read it here: https://www.intezer.com/blog/research/ytstealer-malware-youtube-cookies/
So again, we shouldn't be practicing downloading fake and crack softwares specially if you are into crypto because this is where these hackers and cyber criminals get a hold of your PC and laptop and then going into stealing all the personal data specially crypto from our machine, and once you are affected, you really don't know about it until it's too late.

A supposedly hacker stated that he/ has stolen at least a billion of Chinese citizens record. The Shanghai National Police (SHGA) data was leaked with those information like: name, address, birthplace, national ID number, mobile number, all crime/case details.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/china-data-hack-idTRNIKBN2OF0I1

As for the veracity of the news, CZ has this to do say:



https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1543700689611792386

Just baffling though that the hackers is asking for just 10 BTC? Maybe he thinks that asking for me, the Chinese government or whoever agency is not going to pay him?

And let's say he did received his ransom, how can he hide it?

In a twist of faith, Peter Schiff, a bitcoin opponent, and anti-crypto, had his account frozen by Puerto Rico government.



https://twitter.com/PeterSchiff/status/1543729010278113281

So he believes that bitcoin is not back by something, but the the end of the day, he yielded his money to some centralized power and now his money is frozen, how ironic it is.

It is time for him to move to bitcoin or crypto? Nah, I don't think so, he will just have to rub this though to him. 

Raccoon Stealer 2.0 is back. It was reported that the threat actors operation suddenly stop around March 2022 as it was reported that one of it's developer was killed in the Ukraine-Russia war.

However, SEKOIA.IO, a threat research team, recently discovered that version 2.0 was already released in the wild. What makes this malware very dangerous is that it targets most if not all desktop crypto wallets including,

(MetaMask, TronLink, BinanceChain, Ronin, Exodus, Atomic, JaxxLiberty, Binance, Coinomi, Electrum, Electrum-LTC, ElectronCash, etc.);

Mode of Infection is downloading fake installers and crack softwares like:

• F‑Secure FREEDOME VPN installer (F-Secure Freedome VPN 2.50.23.0.licensesrv.exe_KaHCr.exe)
• R-Studio Network installer (R-Studio.v9.0.190312.licencekey.exe_v3G9m.exe)
• Proton VPN installer (ProtonVPN.exe)

It's very dangerous to us since majority of could have been using VPN (including myself).

For a detailed technical explanation you can read it here: https://blog.sekoia.io/raccoon-stealer-v2-part-1-the-return-of-the-dead/

[France, Brazil, Indonesia, and India]

The famous utility apps, CCleaner is now being used by cyber criminals to spread malware that steal peoples credential, including crypto assets.

This new malware distribution campaign is dubbed “FakeCrack,” and was discovered by analysts at Avast, who report detecting an average of 10,000 infection attempts every day from its customer telemetry data. Most of these victims are based in France, Brazil, Indonesia, and India.

The usual route, if you used Google search engine, then most likely you will be redirected to a malware laden website. And once you download and extract the files, then you are a victim already.

The malware also uses proxies to steal cryptocurrency market account credentials using a man-in-the-middle attack that’s very hard for the victim to detect or realize.

For a detailed technical explanation you can read it here: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/poisoned-ccleaner-search-results-spread-information-stealing-malware/

I think this is the first of it's kind, criminals are faking the voice of Elon Musk, hire someone that sounds like him and the interview, but then change the words itself. But you can't really say that it's fake because the criminals took one step further to synchronize everything, from the opening and closing of his mouth and the words that are coming. Sounds comical, but this is a bold step to scam crypto investors out of their hard earn money.

https://vimeo.com/user52361365

I also urge everyone to report this video as it is circulating on Youtube just like the one below so that it will be taken down ASAP.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/8PwAJyjFpRA

[Prynt Stealer]

There is a new clipboard malware/stealer in the wild, known as Prynt Stealer.

Prynt Stealer targets:

Document: pdf, rtf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, indd, txt, json.

Database: db, db3, db4, kdb, kdbx, sql, sqlite, mdf, mdb, dsk, dbf, wallet, ini.

Source Code: c, cs, cpp, asm, sh, py, pyw, html, css, php, go, js, rb, pl, swift, java, kt, kts, ino.

Image: jpg, jpeg, png, bmp, psd, svg, ai.

Browsers:

    Chromium-based browsers
    MS Edge
    Firefox-based browsers

Files targeted by malware for stealing data:

    Web Data (for Autofill data)
    Login Data (for Login Credentials)
    History (for search history)
    Cookies (for browser Cookies)

Messaging apps target

    Discord
    Pidgin
    Telegram

Crypto wallets:

Zcash, Armory, Bytecoin, Jaxx, Ethereum, AtomicWallet, Guarda,  and Coinomi.

"Stealer queries registry for identifying the location of Blockchains such as Litecoin, Dash, and Bitcoin as shown in Figure below. It obtains the path from registry data “strDataDir” in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Blockchain_name\ Blockchain_name-Qt registry key."




The attacks is very complicated as it uses a lot of Algo so that it won't be detected by AV softwares. Combinations of hard coded strings, AES256 and Rijndael encryption algorithm.

For a detailed technical explanation you can read it here: https://blog.cyble.com/2022/04/21/prynt-stealer-a-new-info-stealer-performing-clipper-and-keylogger-activities/

Let me just reiterated safety and security practices and precautions mentioned in the article:

• Avoid downloading pirated software from warez/torrent websites. The “Hack Tool” present on sites such as YouTube, torrent sites, etc., mainly contains such malware.
  
• Use strong passwords and enforce multi-factor authentication wherever possible.
• Turn on the automatic software update feature on your computer, mobile, and other connected devices.
• Use a reputed anti-virus and internet security software package on your connected devices, including PC, laptop, and mobile.
• Refrain from opening untrusted links and email attachments without first verifying their authenticity.

[ZingoStealer]

Another new info stealer is on the wild, known as ZingoStealer. And this is being released as free to members of the Haskers Gang community.

But the mode of distribution is the same: (1) code generators and cracks (2) game cheat. They even had a Youtube as disguise for a game "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive" (CSGO).



Target browsers:

Google Chrome
Mozilla Firefox
Opera
Opera GX

And what makes this dangerous is that the malware searches for extensions of crypto wallets such as:

TronLink
Nifty Wallet
MetaMask
MathWallet
Coinbase Wallet
Binance Wallet
Brave Wallet
Guarda
EQUAL Wallet
BitApp Wallet
iWallet
Wombat - Gaming Wallet

And it also searches %APPDATA%\Local and %APPDATA%\Roaming for cryptocurrency wallet data associated with the following cryptocurrencies.

Zcash
Armory
Bytecoin
Jaxx Liberty
Exodus
Ethereum
Electrum
Atomic
Guarda
Coinomi

It also queries the registry (HKCU\SOFTWARE\<VALUE>) to identify settings associated with additional cryptocurrency wallets, including:

Bitcoin
Dash
Litecoin

So overall, this malware targets cryptocurrency wallets so it's a very dangerous information stealer that is going in the wild right now.

Again as I have said before, it's better to have a different machine for your crypto related activities so that the chances of you getting this kind of malware might be lessen.

For a detailed technical explanation you can read it here: https://blog.talosintelligence.com/2022/04/haskers-gang-zingostealer.html