A Russian-language hacker forum held a contest for ideas on cryptocurrency hacking

For a month, operators of one of the largest illegal Russian-language forums ran a contest, inviting the community to submit articles on topics related to cryptocurrency-related technology attacks, according to researchers at Intel 471.

Operators of one of the top Russian-language #cybercrime forums have been running a “contest,” calling for the community to submit papers that examine how to target cryptocurrency-related technology. Latest research from @Intel471Inc: https://t.co/RbpGs0M619 pic.twitter.com/2r4HXOLGJZ

— Intel 471 (@Intel471Inc) June 2, 2021

In an April 20, 2021 announcement, the site administrator proposed publishing articles dedicated to unorthodox methods of stealing private keys and wallets, unusual software for cryptocurrency mining, hacking smart contracts, NFTs and other related topics.

Submissions were accepted for 30 days, with a prize pool of $100,000. One notable forum member added $15,000 to the prize.

“The best candidates so far (according to members’ votes) include topics such as creating a fake user interface for a blockchain site that collects confidential information, including private keys and balances, launching a new cryptocurrency from scratch, increasing the hashrate of mining farms and botnets, and demonstrating a tool for parsing artefacts of digital assets in victims’ computer logs,” said Michael DeBolt, Vice President of Intel471.

Intel471 experts stressed that the announced contest is not unusual for illicit forums. At least two of them have run idea contests on broad topics, including ATM and point-of-sale hacks, the creation of botnets for mobile operating systems. Prizes ran up to $10,000. Only for submitting an article did participants receive $50.

Ransomware operators also run their own idea contests, including by groups such as REvil and LockBit.

Experts say the forum’s contest points to the close attention cybercriminals are paying to the digital-asset industry.

“The forum’s efforts show that cybercriminals are closely watching the cryptocurrency ecosystem, have taken note of the steadily rising value of various assets, and will soon target NFTs because of their exorbitant prices,” the experts noted.

They foresee expanding attack vectors as the crypto and DeFi tech stack continues to grow.

CipherTrace notes that in the first five months of 2021 the DeFi reached a record $156 million. This happened against a backdrop of a decline in overall losses from hacker attacks in the crypto industry — since the start of the year users had lost $432 million, and the figure for all of 2020 was $1.9 billion.