SOMEBODY HACKED THE SOUTH KOREAN GOVERNMENT YOUTUBE CHANNEL
Rug Pull Finder got exploited itself. Famous malware evolved and dug into Google Play Store. Vitalik’s predictions on crypto future. Euro falls again.
Coo! Happy Monday, friends! I, Crypto Owl, am returning with news of what happened during the weekend and today!
On Today’s Menu:
🥣 VEGETABLE SOUP: Hacked South Korea’s Government Youtube Channel Broadcasted a Scam Video with Elon Musk
🫒 SPANISH TAPAS: Rug Pull Watchdog Got Exploited
🥩 JUICY STEAK WITH HERBS AND HONEY SAUCE: SharkBot Malware Got Evolved
🍿 POPCORNS (SWEET AND/OR SOUR): More Crypto News Around The Web
HACKED SOUTH KOREA’S GOVERNMENT YOUTUBE CHANNEL BROADCASTED A SCAM VIDEO WITH ELON MUSK
It must be an unusual Saturday for South Korea’s government.
The official South Korean government Youtube channel has been chosen to be a target of the scammers.
According to various reports, hackers changed the channel’s name to Spacex Invest and started a live broadcast with SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk. It was a discussion about cryptocurrencies. Of course, the video was not real.
This attack happened early in the morning; at least employees noticed something was wrong around 6 a.m. The situation was controlled after an hour and a half. The Youtube account was fully restored four hours later.
Google, the mother company of Youtube, and Yonhap, major South Korea’s news agency, confirmed the attack and added that Google Korea is also looking into this attack.
That’s quite ironic because we all know about strict restrictions related to crypto in this country.
However, it’s not a new thing in the crypto world. Scammers often choose to use a crypto-live-investing type of scam. We did a video about it, explaining these crypto scammers in more detail!
RUG PULL WATCHDOG GOT EXPLOITED
Rug Pull Finder - one of the best well-known rug pulls’, or to put it simply - WEB3 related frauds’, investigators.
Even though this platform helps to notice and identify possible rug pulls via NFTs smart contracts, this time… the platform was the one that got abused.
But one step at a time.
Recently, Rug Pull Finder collaborated with Doxxed Media, a digital blockchain creative agency, and created an NFTs collection called Bad Guys.
Bad guys project had 1221 NFTs in a collection, and this fall, it should have been an upcoming 10k collection.
According to the website, having a Bad Guy NFT “guarantees to mint our [watchdog’s] main drop, plus every RPF [Rug Pull Finder] incubate project!”
However….
On Twitter, the Rug Pull Finder announced that someone exploited them. This incident happened because of the watchdog’s mistake. “Our [smart] contract had a flaw that allowed 2 people to scoop up over 450 NFTs”, they wrote.
According to the same Twitter thread, the developers took steps to fix this situation: “We have reached an agreement with the wallets that took advantage of the contract, agreeing to pay them 2.5ETH to purchase the remaining 366 NFTs”.
Hmmm, ok… hello, that’s a lot of money! Isn’t it too much to pay for someone who was just smart enough to find the error and use it for their good? Maybe for the watchdog, it seemed a decent solution.
That’s what Rug Pull Finder added to the post: “From a morality stand-point, that is where we have questions, but they did negotiate in good faith and allow us to come to a reasonable solution with them. So what are we doing with all 366 NFTs? (We are still in the process of purchasing them back)”. Great.
Now the platform gets criticism for what happened because it is unacceptable that something like that happens to the ones who offer such services. On the other hand, some people call the Rug Pull Finder humble.
Nonetheless, Rug Pull Finder seems to be genuinely sorry. And, honestly, it’s cool and brave (and right to do!) to take responsibility for making a mistake and not hide in the bushes pretending it’s not your fault.
THE SHARKBOT MALWARE GOT EVOLVED
The SharkBot malware is a banking and crypto app targeting malware, first discovered in October 2021. Now it's upgraded and managed to sneak into the Google Play store.
Where’s the danger?
It attacks Android-based crypto and bank apps;
It steals cookies information from the accounts;
It also steals fingerprints and authentication information;
It intercepts SMS messages;
It remotely controls the host device;
It asks to be installed as an update for the antivirus (oh, the irony).
The malware was found in two apps: one called “Mister Phone Cleaner”, which was downloaded by around 50k users, and the other one called “Kylhavy Mobile Security”, with 10k downloads.
Even though these apps are removed from the store, it’s still suggested to remove apps manually from the devices.
So, be careful and tell the others!
MONDAY FACTS
Vitalik Buterin says that crypto crashes will be much slower in two decades as cryptocurrency becomes the “Linux of finance”. He also says, "In the medium-term future, cryptocurrencies will settle down and be only about as volatile as gold or the stock market".
Due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, from now on, in the United Kingdom, all cryptocurrency exchanges must report any suspected sanction breaches (for example, if the platform suspects that one of the customers is under sanctions) to the government;
Euro falls again (no more comments, just sad):
On the other hand, U.S. Dollar Index hits a 20-year high! Now it’s 110,25;
Continuing talking numbers, the Bitcoin market cap (at the time of writing, it’s 377,34 billion) is more significant than Bank of America (268,62 billion at the time of writing). Well, there you go.
MORE CRYPTO NEWS AROUND THE WEB
Binance to Establish a Crypto-Friendly Economic Zone in Nigeria
Cardano’s Vasil Hard Fork Update is Set to Launch on September 22nd
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Disclaimer: This newsletter is strictly educational. None of this information is intended to be financial advice. Always do your research and act responsibly with your profits.