Bitcoin has smashed records. Should you invest?

 Originally 120,000 bitcoins worth about $71 million back in 2016 had become $10 billion today.

This case would accidentally assume a place among the largest theft and money laundering cases in American history: an American couple was convicted for stealing 120,000 bitcoins from the Bitfinex platform in 2016. The amounts were slightly over $71 million at the time; with the tremendous increase in the crypto-asset price, their value under theft swelled to more than $10 billion.

Ilya Lichtenstein, 35, was sentenced on Thursday, November 14, to five years in prison after having stolen these bitcoins exploiting a security flaw on Bitfinex. At the time of hacking, Mr. Lichtenstein had just left the start-up for which he worked after a dispute with his boss. His partner, Heather Morgan, did not participate.

Multiple aspects of money laundering

The couple carried out the money laundering of the proceeds of theft through both sophisticated with the involvement of the sophisticated technological methods and artisanal processes in the construction of multiple accounts under fictitious identities across different crypto exchange places and illicit sales sites. Some of the bitcoins financed NFTs, gold, or gift cards applicable to Walmart. Some 20 percent of the stolen bitcoins had been spent by the couple prior to their arrest. The remaining money was confiscated. 

Research published this week by the mobile device management company Jamf has uncovered that those associated with North Korea have directed their operations toward inserting malware into macOS applications, using a legitimate open-source software development kit. The campaigns are said to target cryptocurrencies using infrastructure comparable to that used by North Korea's notorious Lazarus Group. It remains unclear whether this can be termed an actual attack or simply a test run without actual compromise of the adopted systems. 

But financially motivated hackers and state-backed hackers have not had much need to make use of any Mac malware. This is in juxtaposition to hackers that target Microsoft Windows or Linux desktops and servers with their exploitation tools. So, when Mac malware appears on the scene, it is usually a minor behavior; however, it does denote changes and focus points.