© Kacper Pempel / Reuters
Large-scale internet scanning campaigns have been intercepted by security researcher Didier Stevens. The so-called honeypot, a mechanism designed by Stevens to detect, deflect, or counteract unauthorized attempts to use information systems, managed to pick up a bot searching for files containing cryptocurrency wallets.
"I've seen a couple of such requests a couple of years ago, but it's the first time I see that many. The first time I observed this was late 2013, in the middle of the first big BTC (bitcoin) price rally," Stevens said, as quoted by Global Crypto Press, which focuses on cryptocurrency and tech news.
The researcher posted the findings on the forum of US-based SANS Technology Institute. The filenames included wallet - Copy.dat, wallet.dat, wallet.dat.1, wallet.dat.zip, wallet.tar, wallet.tar.gz, wallet.zip, wallet_backup.dat, wallet_backup.dat.1, wallet_backup.dat.zip, wallet_backup.zip.
Hackers are reportedly looking for bitcoin wallet archives, which were accidentally left online. Access to the archives provides access to the funds stalled in the digital currency. The price for one bitcoin token is currently hovering around $10,000, which is stirring up interest among cybercriminals.
At the same time, Stevens revealed that cyberthieves started searching for ethereum wallet clients that are accessible over the internet.
The network security expert said the number of blind requests to the JSON-RPC interface of ethereum nodes has increased. This interface is a programmatic API (application programming interface) for ethereum clients that should be exposed only locally.
The interface does not support any authentication with wallet apps installed on the users' computers and can make calls to an ethereum client to move and manage funds.
According to Stevens, criminals can also make requests to this JSON-RPC interface and issue commands to move funds to their wallets if the user's computer is online.
Users that are running ethereum nodes, which require having internet access, should make sure they turn off the JSON-RPC interface's incoming requests or forward them through an intermediary server to filter only approved clients.
Bitcoin could 'easily' reach $40,000, says man who predicted current high
The world's most valuable cryptocurrency bitcoin can quadruple in price from the current record high of $10,000 in the next 13 months, predicts former Fortress hedge fund manager Michael Novogratz.
"Bitcoin could be at $40,000 at the end of 2018. It easily could," Novogratz told CNBC.
On Monday, the digital currency smashed the $10,000 mark on South Korea's Bithumb, one of the world's biggest exchanges for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin started the year at below $1,000 and has since jumped more than ten-fold.
According to Novogratz, by the end of 2018 bitcoin's rival ethereum "could be triple (from) where it is as well." Ethereum also reached a record high of $493.40 on Monday, gaining almost 6,000 percent this year.
The investment guru claims that "probably over 20 percent" or "maybe even 30 percent" of his net worth is in cryptocurrencies, split roughly in half between bitcoin and ethereum.
The total market capitalization of all digital coins according to CoinMarketCap hit over $300 billion this week. Novogratz expects that to increase by about six times to $2 trillion by the end of next year.
"There's a big wave of money coming, not just here but all around the world," said the businessman who plans to launch a $500 million digital assets fund through his new firm, Galaxy Investment Partners. Demand from Asia, mostly from Japan and South Korea, has been the most significant contributor to bitcoin's gains since China halted all exchange-based crypto trading.
Novogratz says that in contrast to oil and renewable energy products, companies cannot produce more bitcoin to meet demand since the digital currency's supply is limited to 21 million coins.
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