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The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Singapore-based Terraform Labs PTE Ltd and Do Hyeong Kwon with orchestrating a multi-billion dollar crypto asset securities fraud involving an algorithmic stablecoin and other crypto asset securities.

According to the SEC’s complaint, from April 2018 until the scheme’s collapse in May 2022, Terraform and Kwon raised billions of dollars from investors by offering and selling an inter-connected suite of crypto asset securities, many in unregistered transactions. These included “mAssets,” security-based swaps designed to pay returns by mirroring the price of stocks of US companies, and Terra USD (UST), a crypto asset security referred to as an “algorithmic stablecoin” that supposedly maintained its peg to the U.S. dollar by being interchangeable for another of the defendants’ crypto asset securities, LUNA. The complaint further alleges that Terraform and Kwon offered and sold investors other means to invest in their crypto empire, including the crypto asset security tokens MIR—or “mirror” tokens—and LUNA itself.

The SEC’s complaint alleges that Terraform and Kwon marketed crypto asset securities to investors seeking to earn a profit, repeatedly claiming that the tokens would increase in value. For example, they touted and marketed UST as a “yield-bearing” stablecoin, which they advertised as paying as much as 20 percent interest through the Anchor Protocol. The SEC’s complaint also alleges that, while marketing the LUNA token, Terraform and Kwon repeatedly misled and deceived investors that a popular Korean mobile payment application used the Terra blockchain to settle transactions that would accrue value to LUNA. Meanwhile, Terraform and Kwon also allegedly misled investors about the stability of UST. In May 2022, UST depegged from the U.S. dollar, and the price of it and its sister tokens plummeted to close to zero.

"We allege that Terraform and Do Kwon failed to provide the public with full, fair, and truthful disclosure as required for a host of crypto asset securities, most notably for LUNA and Terra USD," said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. "We also allege that they committed fraud by repeating false and misleading statements to build trust before causing devastating losses for investors."

"I commend the SEC’s hard-working staff who remained vigilant in such an important investigation, even when the defendants attempted to prevent us from obtaining important information about their business," Chair Gensler added. "This case demonstrates the lengths to which some crypto firms will go to avoid complying with the securities laws, but it also demonstrates the strength and commitment of the SEC’s dedicated public servants."

"Today’s action not only holds the defendants accountable for their roles in Terra’s collapse, which devastated both retail and institutional investors and sent shock waves through the crypto markets, but once again highlights that we look to the economic realities of an offering, not the labels put on it," said Gurbir S. Grewal, Director of the SEC’s Division of Enforcement. "As alleged in our complaint, the Terraform ecosystem was neither decentralized, nor finance. It was simply a fraud propped up by a so-called algorithmic “stablecoin” – the price of which was controlled by the defendants, not any code."

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charges the defendants with violating the registration and anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Act and the Exchange Act.

The investigation was conducted by Roger Landsman, Elisabeth Goot, Kathleen Hitchins, James Murtha, Daniel Koster, Donald Battle, and David Crosbie and was supervised by Reid Muoio, Osman Nawaz, Jorge Tenreiro, and David Hirsch from the Complex Financial Instruments and Crypto Assets and Cyber Units. The litigation is being handled by James Connor, Ladan Stewart, Devon Staren, and Laura Meehan from the Trial Unit.

In today's Utopia P2P news on the application client, I read that the Supply of the Crypton is now 8 Million but the Crypton coin price at the moment is still $0.6 per coin on the average value for all sites which is the exact price it was since last year.
My question is, is it possible for Crypton coin to break the  $0.6 barrier price?

To be a successful cybersecurity analyst, you must first understand the characteristics, values, and thought processes of hackers, as well as the tools they use to launch their attacks.
A Red Team Researcher shared how you can use some of these tools for your own breach detection and prevention during a webinar called The Hacker Mindset. He also demonstrated how an attack takes place using the Follina exploit as an example.

So, what does "the hacker mindset" mean?

The hacker mindset can be characterized by three core values: a strong sense of curiosity, an adversarial attitude, and persistence.

3 core values of a hacker's mindset

1 — Curiosity might have killed the cat, but it had nine lives.
Curiosity drives hackers to explore and understand systems, networks, and software in order to identify vulnerabilities. Not only are they constantly seeking new knowledge and skills to improve their abilities and stay ahead of security measures, but they're also constantly applying newly learned approaches, tricks, and techniques in different systems. This is why I like Utopia's close source code.

2 — Move fast and break things

Although dramatically different in context from Facebook's blitz-scaling motto, an adversarial attitude is a mindset that is always looking for ways to defeat security measures, challenge the status quo, and push the boundaries of what is possible.

Hackers are often driven by a desire to prove their own abilities and to test the limits of systems and networks. Hackers constantly ask themselves: "how can I break this?", "how can I exploit this?", "how can I bend this to my will and cause maximum damage?" Cybersecurity teams, on the flip side, are focused on protection. However, employing an adversarial mindset is an essential critical thinking tool that can help drastically improve the organization's cyber posture by preemptively detecting and remediating vulnerabilities.

3 — Of course I struggle, I just don't quit

Persistence is an important trait for hackers as they often need to try multiple approaches and techniques in order to find a way into a system. They may encounter roadblocks and failures, but they don't give up easily. They'll will continue to work until they have achieved their goal.

Often hackers remind themselves that cybersecurity teams need to identify and remediate all vulnerabilities while a hacker needs to find only one. The relentless pursuit of vulnerabilities is at their core.

Why understanding MITRE ATT&CK is key

MITRE ATT&CK is a systematic way of understanding and defending against cyber threats by identifying the methods and techniques that attackers use to gain access to systems and steal or damage data.

The framework describes the tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) used by cyber attackers. It's used to help organizations understand and defend against cyber threats.

The framework is divided into different "matrices" which cover various types of threats like enterprise, mobile, and industrial control systems. Each matrix lists the different TTPs that attackers may use, like initial access, execution, persistence, and data exfiltration.

The goal of the MITRE ATT&CK framework is to provide a common language and understanding of the tactics and techniques used by attackers. This allows organizations to better identify and prioritize their security efforts, and to develop more effective defenses against cyber threats.

If you understand the framework, you're one step ahead in finding the right tools that will help you to gain visibility into critical assets like user data, endpoints, servers, and SaaS applications – allowing you to find the next vulnerability before it's exploited by a hacker.