Safeheron Weekly Dispatch | JUL 29 '22

07/29/2022

Security Incidents

Veteran Online Game Neopets Stung by Major Hack

The veteran online game Neopets said it had suffered a hack on Thursday, with some reports estimating it may have affected as many as 69 million customer accounts. Allegedly, a hacker known as TarTarX began offered up the source code and database for the Neopets.com website for the price of four bitcoin, citing screenshots from a hacking forum.

Web3 Music Platform Audius Community Treasury Was Exploited

18MM $AUDIO was moved from the Audius Community Treasury to a wallet the attacker controlled. Audited contracts were compromised due to an exploit in the contract initialization code that allowed repeated invocations of the "initialize" function.

Stablecoin Project Nirvana on Solana Attacked by a Flash Loan

The attacker used a flash loan to borrow 10,250,000 USDC from Solend by deploying a malicious contract, and then called the Nirvana contract buy3 method to buy a large amount of ANA tokens. Nirvana contract swap method to sell part of ANA, get USDT and USDC, after repaying the flash loan, a total profit of 3,490,563.69 USDT, 21,902.48 USDC and 393,230.32 ANA tokens, then the hacker sold ANA tokens and passed all the dirty money through the cross-chain bridge transfer.

Industry Updates

Safeheron

Safeheron Attended Web3 Disruptors Week Roundtable

Safeheron CTO attended Web3 Disruptors Week Roundtable, sharing the understanding on privacy and cybersecurity of Web3 and solutions. Learn more.

Atato

Atato Announces a $6 Million Series A Raise

Atato's MPC institutional grade custodial product provides institutions and entities with an extremely cost-efficient solution with enterprise-grade security and regulatory compliance that supports digital assets as well as interact with Web3.0 and DeFi.

Komainu

Komainu Gained Provisional Regulatory Approval in Dubai

Komainu has gained provisional regulatory approval to operate in Dubai, becoming the latest blockchain firm to begin setting up shop in the region. The company will seek to launch Komainu Yield — allowing institutions to earn yield on assets custodied with the company.

Keet Introduces P2P Digital Communications

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and USDT stablecoin issuer Tether have collaborated with the Hypercore open-source protocol team to launch a new peer-to-peer (P2P) communications application, Keet. Keet launched its alpha version. The mobile version of the app is expected to be launched by November 2022. Keet’s improves upon popular end-to-end encrypted offering is that the connection is established purely between the users taking part in the chat. Keet’s data sharing mechanism is that users collectively download and seed packets of data to each other in a way that removes the need for the original source to keep feeding information for each new user. Payments in the context of Keet are optional and can be used to offer tips.

The IOTA Foundation And walt.id to Bring Seamless Sign-In “Login With IOTA”

The IOTA Foundation is developing a privacy-preserving login system based on self-sovereign identity (SSI) called Login With IOTA, which allows traditional (Web2) and decentralized (Web3) apps to easily onboard users. In this system, users remain in full control of their data and will be able to securely share information at their discretion. The project will use globally-recognized standards like OIDC for authentication and data exchange with widely-used W3C Verifiable Credentials to model identity data. walt.id and the IOTA Foundation will implement the project over the coming months and officially launch the first version in autumn 2022.

Oasis Labs Partners with Meta to Assess Fairness for its AI Models

Oasis Labs built the platform that uses Secure Multi-Party Computation (SMPC) to safeguard information as Meta asks users on Instagram to take a survey in which they can voluntarily share their race or ethnicity. The project will advance fairness measurement in AI models, which will positively impact the lives of individuals across the globe and benefit society as a whole. The platform will play a major role in an initiative that is an important step towards identifying whether an AI model is fair and allowing for appropriate mitigation.

NewsFlash

• Samsung officially ships its first batch of 3nm GAA chips to cryptocurrency miners.

• DeHealth announces cooperation with Chainlink to protect and tokenize private medical data.

• TNG Digital, the owner and operator of Touch ‘n Go eWallet, has raised $168 million.

• Nas Academy, a Singapore-based education startup that caters to the creator economy, has raised US$12 million.

• Aptos closes $150 million round that it plans to invest in the development of its safe and scalable Layer 1 blockchain.

• The decentralised game hosting and distribution platform, TRIKON announced that it has raised USD 1.5 million in seed round with lead investor 5ire Capital.

• Sports community platform Stadium Live raises $10M in Series A.

• Smrti Lab pour $90 million into crypto hedge fund.

• Crypto venture firm Variant raises $450 million for two new venture funds.

• TokenPocket has participated in DeBox_Social 's seed round investment and will build a strong strategic partnership with DeBox_Social.

• Reltime raises $50M to bring Web3 biometric solution to market with lead investor GEM Digital Limited.

Market Regulation

North America

• US House of Representatives lawmakers could release a draft stablecoin bill as early as this week, after plans to release a full piece of legislation fell apart.

• SEC’s Chair Gary Gensler steps up push to get crypto exchanges to register with regulator.

Europe

• Law Commission of England and Wales seeks to see crypto as a new type of property.

• Russia gears up to regulate NFTs through legislative amendments.

Asia

• Huobi Group granted MVP provisional approval from Dubai Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority which will enable Huobi to offer a full suite of virtual asset exchange products and services to institutions.

• Iran amends regulations to ease crypto miners’ access to renewable energy.

• FTX Exchange FZE Receives Dubai's First Virtual Asset Service Provider MVP Licence to offer derivatives trading and clearing services to institutional investors.

• Philippine plans for the next six years includes the imposition of tax on digital service providers that could include crypto exchanges.

• Japan Ministry of Economy launches Web3 policy office to bring together the departments responsible for industrial finance, taxation, corporate system and those that deal with media and content, sports, fashion and the other entertainment industries.

• South Korea’s The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) is working on digital asset accounting and auditing.

Industry Briefing

Overall, the market is influenced by the economic slowdown. And some major cryptocurrencies have risen in pricing, still a lot of short-term risks around. And, from regulations, we can find that Dubai is making its way to be a center for crypto as many exchanges and other game players are obtaining license from Dubai.

According to a report by Boston Consulting Group, Bitget and Foresight Ventures, crypto adoption is still very low compared with traditional investment assets. The shallow investment penetration means there is still a lot of room for more substantial growth and adoption within the crypto industry. By comparing the data, the researchers predicted that crypto users may reach 1 billion by 2030 if the trendline continues on its course.

Security incidents in this week have varied platforms under attacks and malicious code, contract exploits, etc. all are coming their way. The security attacking has been updating themselves, which means, for the market players, you shall also pay attention to those security incidents and strengthen your awareness and learn more about effective security measures.