Bitcoin a Cryptocurrency

What is Bitcoin or Crypto-Currency

Bitcoin is a form of digital currency or virtual currency having no physical existence. Bitcoin was invented by Satoshi Nakamoto. It is still not known whether he or she is one person or group of people. Bitcoin was released as open-source software in 2009. Bitcoin is called as crypto-currency because cryptography has been used to code its value to ensure maximum security.

18^th August 2008 -  The domain bitcoin.org was registered. Today, this domain is “whoisguard protected”, meaning the identity of the person who registered is not public information.

08^th January 2009 – The first version of the Bitcoin software is announced on the Cryptography mailing list.

      09^th January 2009- First Block is mined.

     

Bitcoin uses peer-to-peer technology to operate with no central authority or bank. Bitcoin is stored in blockchain worldwide. People are being rewarded few bit coins for verifying the transactions.

      Bitcoin Value (in Indian Rupee)-

      August 2017         1,43,561/-

      September 2017   2,74,549/-

      November 2017   6,38,232/-

       In 2016, it was reported that approximately 14 million wallets are in use. Ethereum, another crypto currency similar to Bitcoin has little over a million wallets.

      Because currency is digital or virtual therefore can be transferred anywhere using software over the Internet. Thousands of people are working as miners to verify ach transaction. Miners need to solve the mathematical problem and in return they are being rewarded some bitcoins.

Allowed number of wallets-

A user can have as many wallets as he or she wishes.

Bitcoin Usages-

Bitcoins are being used to buy illegal things like drugs, weapons, money laundering, tax avoidance . Cyber criminals used cryptocurrency as preferred mode of payment to receive ransom. But best part is that each transaction can be traced. Therefore Bitcoins are Pseudonymous not anonymous.

      Used Terminology-

     BlockChain- is permanent database of Bitcoin Addresses.

     Block- Is the up-to-date part of blockchain which records each and every transaction and all blocks are chained together. Each block is linked to every other in chronological order. Each block has hash of its predecessor.

     BTC is the abbreviated version of Bitcoin, similar to USD in traditional currencies.
     

     Bitcoin Wallet-

     A wallet stores all the necessary information to transact bitcoins. Bitcoin uses public key cryptography, a wallet is collection of these keys.

     Account numbers are public keys of a specific asymmetric encryption system.

     Bitcoin Account ownership is established by knowing the corresponding private key.

     If Private key is lost- 

    The Bitcoin network will not recognize any other evidence of ownership; the coins are then unusable, thus lost. In 2013, one user claimed to have lost 7,500 Bitcoins, worth $7.5 million at that time, when he accidently discarded a hard drive containing his private key. Therefore-

Backup your Wallet always.

—  To download wallet- bitcoin.org/en/download

     BlockChain-

    Blockchain is database of every transaction that has ever taken place. Blocks are data structures encapsulating transactions as well as a reference to the previous block, therefore forming a chain of blocks.

    BlockChain Drawback- Is blockchain’s size, it is getting bigger and bigger to record all the transactions which are taking place worldwide. This leads to synchronization problems as new block appears in the blockchain every ten minutes.

   
     Retailers accepting Bitcoins-  To name a few:

     Bloomberg

     Cheapair.com

     Dell

     Expedia

     Microsoft

     Mint

     Overstock

     Subway

     Walmart

     Wordpress

     Bitcoin Privacy-  

    Bitcoin is pseudonymous, meaning that funds are not tied to real world entities but rather Bitcoin addresses. Owners of Bitcoin addresses are not explicitly identified, but all transactions on the blockchain are public.     

    Bitcoin Mining- 

    In the absence of a central authority, crypto-currencies are created by a process called “mining”- usually the performance of a large number of computations to solve a crypto-graphic” puzzle”.

    Bitcoin mining is the process of adding transaction records to Bitcoin’s public ledger of past transactions or blockchain. This ledger of past transactions is called as blockchain as it is a chain of blocks. The block chain serves to confirm the transactions to the rest of the network.

   Bitcoin nodes use the block chain to distinguish legitimate Bitcoin transactions from attempts to re-spend bitcoins that have already been spent elsewhere.

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Website- www.cybersecuritydelhi.com

Ransomware, Bitcoin and Bitcoin Forensics

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What is Blue Whale Game & How to Protect Children

The Blue Whale Game alias "Blue Whale Challenge", exists in several countries and can be accessed via Social Media Accounts. The game allegedly consists of a series of tasks assigned to players by administrators during 50- day period, with the final challenge requiring the player to commit suicide. The participants are also asked to share the photographs  to the  blue whale game administrator as evidence that they have completed each task assigned to them. 
The term "Blue Whale" comes from the phenomenon of beached whales, which is linked to suicide. (wikipedia.org) 
Blue Whale Game began in Russia in 2013 and caused first suicide in 2015. Philipp Budeikin a psychology student who was expelled from the university, claimed that he invented the game with purpose- to "clean" the world by pushing mentally weak to suicide . Budeikin was arrested and found guilty to "inciting at least 16 teenage girls to commit suicide", leading to Russian Suicide Prevention Legislation.
 Cases have been reported in various countries like Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Colombia, Georgia, India, Italy, Kenya, Paraguay, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Spain, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela (Source- wikipedia.org)

Cases in India- 
In  Kerala a 16 year old boy commited suicide on 26th July 2017 after playing the online Blue Whale Game. It was said that he ended his life after completing the tasks of this game. His mother acknowledged that her son had informed her about playing the Blue Whale Game, and that he told her not to worry if he dies soon. Boy used to visit cemeteries during the night and go to sea beaches alone.

Source-http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/160817/kerala-teen-commits-suicide-to-allegedly-complete-blue-whale-challenge.html

On 30th July 2017, 14 year old boy committed suicide by jumping from the seventh floor of an building in Mumbai, though the Mumbai Police said that they had not found evidence that the teenager had played the game. The boy left a statement - Only thing you will be left with is a picture of mine.

Source-http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mumbai-suicide-boy-kills-self-teenager-suicide-andheri-blue-whale-online-game-online-challenge-bluewhale/1/1015159.html

On 10th August 2017, a class VII student of Indore, Madhya Pradesh attempted to suicide and was pulled away by other students. The boy apparently recorded the whole 50 stages of the game, in his school diary.

Source- http://zeenews.india.com/india/blue-whale-challenge-entraps-another-class-7-student-jumps-off-from-school-building-in-indore-2032004.html

Steps already taken by Government
 The government has directed Internet and social networking giants such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft to “immediately remove” any link to the “deadly game” Blue Whale which has allegedly caused several suicides by children in the country.

Source-http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/60070772.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

 "For many teens that are contemplating suicide, there's often a sense of disconnect, a sense that they're alone in the world, that nobody really cares about or values them," Dr. Sally Nazari told InsideEdition.com 

Source-  https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/08/02/inside-the-blue-whale-challenge-suicide-game/23061666/

  How to Protect your Children/Students-

1. Talk to your child, let them share anything they want  or see anything which scares them.
2. Use Parental Control Software.
3. Notice if they are withdrawing from family and friends.
4. Notice any change in their behavior like outburst of anger, irritation, sleeping disorder etc.
5. Antivirus/Internet Security software also have features to block unwanted websites, keywords, content etc.
6. Monitor Internet History, the websites your children browse.
7. Check their text messages, log messages, whatsapp, snapchat etc.
8. Check what do they do on Social Networking Websites, be friend on their Facebook etc.
9. Loss of interest in any activity which they loved.
10. If required don’t hesitate in taking the expert’s help.
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Beware of Sim Card Swap Fraud

Nowadays many people are loosing huge amount of money because of Sim Card Swap Fraud.
People normally link their  banking account number with mobile phone sim card and after demonetization, online money transactions have increased rapidly. Because people have no cyber security awareness so they fall victim in the hands of scamsters.

How Scamsters Operate-

Scamster calls his victim claiming that he is from his mobile service provider and says that you are using 3G sim card and company is offering you 4G sim free of cost for improved internet services. He then sends 20 digit number by SMS after disconnecting the call. Victim sends this 20 digit number back to the caller or tells over phone and presses options 1 or 2 as asked by the caller. Within few seconds victim's sim card get deactivated and this is what scamster wants.

Victim thinks that his mobile services will resume within sometime unfortunately sim card never gets activated. And scamster do online shopping using his linked bank account.

Actually scamsters already have a new duplicate sim for the victim's mobile number, which they get either by producing fake documents or by impersonating the victim. After getting the duplicate sim card, scamster calls the victim and uses new duplicate sim card to receive OTP from the bank..

How to protect from CyberBullying - Cyber Safety Measures for Teenagers

Cyber bullying is not only common rather increasing day by day among teenagers, school going students.  Cyber-bullying requires high level of attention because not only children are stressed at psychological level but often they go into depression or committed suicide or sometimes behave very aggressively or rudely after having been muddled in  cyber-bullying incidents.

Intentionally or unintentionally when a child, or school going student is harassed, humiliated,  by another child using mobile phones or any electronic media or Internet is called as Cyber-bullying. 

Cyber bullying incidents normally take place on social networking websites such as Facebook,  and Twitter etc. Mcafee 2014 study reveals that 87% of youth have witnessed cyber bullying.

Safety Measures Parents and Teachers can opt to save their child or student from being a victim of cyber bullying incident-

1. To ensure safety and security parents and teachers must spend time with children and discuss their online activities. Know what exactly they do browse or post. It has been seen that girls prefer social media chat programs like Instagram while boys prefer to interact over gaming console. 
2. Ask your child to enable privacy settings on Facebook, Twitter etc.
3. Get access of your children’s social media accounts and passwords of children’s devices, in case of any emergency you can help them or know their whereabouts.
4. Educate children to keep their passwords safe and tell them not share their passwords with their friends. 
5. Schools must educate the students about cyberbullying, cyber ethics and cyber law as well. 
6. Never allow them to share their personal information openly like email ids, mobile number or address etc.
7. Tell them not to open emails or Facebook messages from unknown persons or from known cyber bullies. Ask them to delete such messages without reading. 
8. Take Screen shots of cyber  bullying incidents and report the incident to the police.
9. Report cyber bullying incident to the relevant website by clicking on the “Report Abuse” button.
10. Educate children that social media friends may not be your real friends.