Kaspersky Lab recommends that those who are involved in cryptocurrency take extra measures to ensure their safety when conducting trades. The company specifically recommends being wary of new third-parties and to only install software from reliable websites onto your computer. When opening Microsoft Office documents, Kaspersky Lab further cautions to only allow macro scripting from trusted sources. This is usually done by toggling the “Enable Content” tab.

Lazarus is one of the most notorious hacking groups in the world. In their campaign targeting cryptocurrencies, the group is reportedly responsible for the theft of $571 million to $882 million in 2017 and 2018. This amounts to 65% of all cryptocurrency stolen from online exchanges. Of last year’s 14 major cryptocurrency breaches, Lazarus was responsible for five. Lazarus made international headlines in January of 2018 when they stole $530 million from Coincheck, a Japanese exchange.

Lazarus was the subject of a recent exposé on Cointelegraph, a cryptocurrency news organization. The report claims that the North Korean government of Kim Jong-un has stolen about $670 million in hacks targeting cryptocurrency and fiat exchanges. The attacks began in 2015 and the perpetrators typically use blockchain technology to hide from authorities.

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OKEx also has a native utility-token known as OKB. In April, the token will feature on the ERC-20 blockchain. Immediately OK chain gains stability, it will be shifted to the OKChain mainnet. OKB will mainly deal with the token pre-sale. OKEx has also been supporting the Thai baht-crypto trading since February. Their support is centred on the client-to-client platform. OKEx is only focusing on Tether (USDT), Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC). All these types of cryptocurrency will be used when trading with the Thai baht. The transactions will take place on the peer-to-peer platform.

OKCoin was founded by Star Xu. The company has been growing fast, and Star Xu was able to acquire a controlling stake at LEAP Holdings. The engineering firm is located in the Caymans, and it has also been enlisted at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

On December last year, OKEx also came up with Perpetual Swap, a new crypto derivative product that helps users to predict the value of the Bitcoin/USD in the future. The perpetual swap by OKEx does not have an expiration date which means it can be used indefinitely. Currently, OKEx is also ranked as the eighth largest company that deals with cryptocurrency exchange.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission today filed charges against an international securities dealer and its Austria-based CEO for allegedly violating the federal securities laws in connection with security-based swaps funded with bitcoins.

The company 1Pool Ltd. is registered in the Republic of Marshall Islands and supports two exchange platforms – 1Broker and 1Fox. Both of them deal with cryptocurrencies and crypto-related funds and operate as brokers between traders.

The story with the violated regulations dates two years ago. It seems that 1Broker’s verification process did not meet U.S. standard because, according to the release, investors could register only with a name and an email. The Federal Bureau of Investigations nosed the case out and hired a Special agent to chase the deals. He was put under cover and went online to check out the platform’s operations. Despite not compliant with the mandatory investment requirements, the agent could successfully buy security-based swaps funded with Bitcoins.

Although our terms of service explicitly state that customers have to verify that using our service is legal in their country of residence, the domain was closed because a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation was able to create trades on 1Broker.

Reads the announcement posted on the 1Pool Ltd. website. Apparently, the company relied on clients’ honesty and awareness to state local security laws and to check if they are even eligible to execute trades on the 1Broker platform.

Now, the firm reassures all their customers that their funds are safe.

This means that the trading panel is not accessible anymore – funds, servers, and databases are not affected. Currently, our top priority is to allow customer withdrawals. The company holds enough funds to cover all withdrawal requests, of course.

At the moment, company’s official speakers say, 1Pool Ltd. works closely with the authorities and received a green light from their attorneys to develop a read-only version of 1Broker where traders and investors can track their assets. Open positions are frozen at the prices of the prior moment on 28th of September when the site was finally seized. The Marshall-Islands based firm says it works primarily on users’ withdrawals, but the process might take a few days.

Updates are to be posted on 1Pool Ltd. official website: https://1pool.ltd/

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