Major reports were issued this month on cyber-criminal activity. A report from Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics software provider, found that sophisticated hacks were on the rise and that most could be traced to two professional criminal groups. Together, these two groups reportedly stole $1 billion, with an average of $90 million stolen per hack. The Chainalysis report also describes a significant increase in darknet market activity (with transaction volume surpassing $600 million despite falling cryptocurrency prices), and a surge in Ethereum scams related to phishing, Ponzi schemes and ICO exit scams.

According to a recent report by CipherTrace, criminals stole or scammed $1.7 billion in cryptocurrency in 2018 – 3.6 times the amount in 2017. The CipherTrace report breaks down the process through which these funds are laundered and identifies services and tools that the cryptocurrency launderers use. The report also lists what CipherTrace believes to be the top cryptocurrency threats – the highest being SIM swapping, a type of identity theft whereby the victim's phone number is stolen and used to obtain access to two-factor authentication codes.

Terrorist financing was also featured in recent cryptocurrency news, with a message sent by a spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas urging supporters to make donations in bitcoin in order to circumvent international restrictions on funding the organization. And the Cryptopia saga continues. About two weeks after the widely reported hack of the New Zealand-based exchange, the same hacker has reportedly resumed its attack. Elementus, a blockchain data analytics firm, reported that an additional 1,675 ether from 17,000 wallets had been stolen in this recent attack.

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