Attackers compromised a legitimate Italian state email address to impersonate law enforcement and trick Revolut into releasing personal data of approximately 680-700 customers, primarily cryptocurrency holders. The hackers are now demanding a $3 million ransom in Monero cryptocurrency with a 24-hour deadline to prevent the data's sale.
Malone Lam, a 22-year-old Singapore man, is scheduled to appear in federal court in Washington on Tuesday for a plea agreement hearing related to one of the largest cryptocurrency thefts in U.S. history. Prosecutors allege he helped orchestrate a scheme in which callers posing as Google and Gemini staff defrauded a single victim of over $240 million in bitcoin, with proceeds allegedly spent on luxury cars and private jets.
Malone Lam, 22, is expected to plead guilty in federal court to orchestrating a $240-245 million Bitcoin theft by impersonating Google and Gemini staff to trick a Washington investor. A Singaporean co-conspirator also pleaded guilty.
Michael Coates, newly appointed Chief Information Security Officer at the Solana Foundation, warned that AI-driven social engineering attacks, deepfakes, and credential theft have become the cryptocurrency industry's primary security threats, replacing traditional smart contract vulnerabilities as the main concern.
The Five Eyes intelligence alliance—comprising the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—issued an unprecedented joint security bulletin warning that Chinese intelligence operatives are using professional networking sites like LinkedIn and job platforms to target government and military personnel with fake recruitment offers to obtain classified information.
The Department of Justice sentenced a member of a scam group to nearly six years in prison for participating in a $263 million fraud operation that used social engineering to steal from crypto users, with proceeds spent on luxury items and real estate.
DNS provider EasyDNS confirmed responsibility for the eth.limo domain hijack, marking its first successful social engineering attack in 28 years. The incident adds to a growing list of crypto front-ends compromised at the DNS layer in recent months.
