A vulnerability discovered in the GNU C library DNS client may have implications for many Bitcoin node and wallet implementations on Linux, keep reading for information on that and how to resolve it.

The U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is closing in on Josh Garza and GAW Miners with a filing for a default judgement on charges of a Ponzi scheme and securities fraud. This may mean the end for the year-long investigation.

Ransomware using bitcoin is still at large, now that a Hollywood hospital has been hit with a shutdown and demand on the order of $3.6 million in bitcoins.

It’s easy to understand why it’s been cited that 2016 would be “The Year of Blockchain,” now that numerous projects have appeared that take advantage of blockchain-based technology. Amid them the thinktank of big banks R3CEV, LLC and now the Bitcoin Foundation’s Hyperledger Project, which includes IBM Corp. In today’s Bitcoin Weekly, IBM comes front-and-center when it comes to blockchain technology with a Blockchain-as-a-Service platform as well as developer-centric accelerators (IBM Garages) and an IoT platform service.

At time of publishing, Bitcoin market value is at $420.73 (Bitcoinaverage.com) and this is up from last week when it rested around $380. Over the past seven days the market value has seen an average rise, with only two plateaus. This puts the price back in range of a spike in mid-late January (to around $420) which fell almost immediately afterwards to $380only days later.

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After Google unveils Glibc DNS Client vulnerability, Bitcoin clients may need update

A recent vulnerability unveiled by Google affecting the GNU C library DNS client has direct implications for Bitcoin nodes and clients, according to Qntra:

The vulnerability allows the getaddrinfo function to overflow opening the doors to all manner of malice. This vulnerability affects all Bitcoin implementations compiled against the GNU C library which invoke DNS. This includes Bitcoin Core and the clients programmed to eventually fork into altcoins including the “Bitcoin” XT and “Bitcoin” “Classic” network clients.

However, the Bitcoin client maintained by the Bitcoin Foundation is unaffected by the vulnerability, having previously excising the code for upnp before the exploit was made public. To limit possible exposure scripts are available for building the reference code against the musl C library as well.

As a result of this vulnerability, it is suggested that anyone running Bitcoin nodes or the Bitcoin client software from XT or Classic should update immediately.

The SEC files for default judgement against Josh Garza and GAW Miners

The long-running plight of Josh Garza may be coming to an end: the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed for a default judgement against Garza, GAW Miners, and ZenMiner that the companies perpetrated a Ponzi fraud scheme involving securities (in this case mining certificates called “Haslets”).

According to SiliconANGLE’s Duncan Riley, the SEC has asked the United States District Court “that judgment permanently enjoin those entities from future securities law violations and order them to pay disgorgement and prejudgment interest of $10,384,099, and an appropriate third civil penalty.”

The history of Josh Garza is a long-winded tale of suspicion and fraud that starts with the SEC investigation beginning in January 2015 and continuing until charges were finally filed in December last year.

“As alleged in our complaint, Garza and his companies cloaked their scheme in technological sophistication and jargon, but the fraud was simple at its core: They sold what they did not own, misrepresented what they were selling and robbed one investor to pay another,” the SEC’s Boston Regional Office Direct Paul G. Levenson said previously.

Essentially, Garza is being charged with allegedly overselling mining computing power for Bitcoin mining certificates, basically an old-fashioned mining claim scheme writ digital. According to the charges, Garza’s companies misled investors and customers into thinking that they were receiving proper dividends from the mining operations, but they were not.

Ransomware holds Hollywood hospital hostage for bitcoin payment

Increasingly, sneaky encrypting ransomware is using bitcoin for criminal activity. In this case, Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center was taken offline due to ransomware and the attackers behind it demanded 9,000 bitcoins (approximately $3.6 million) to return access to the computer system.

Although no people have died due to the attack, it did force the hospital to transport critical patients to other hospitals. The malware compromised hospital internal systems, which shut down access to electronic documents, CT scanners, online lab work and pharmacy activity.

The hospital did state that no medical records were compromised by the malware.

IBM announced numerous blockchain-based platforms on February 16 including a Blockchain-as-a-Service offering, an Internet of Things Watson service, and IBM Bluemix Garages to assist the next generation of blockchain app developers. Image via IBM, http://www.ibm.com/blockchain/index.html

IBM moves to colonize blockchain technology with Blockchain-as-a-Service

Yesterday, IBM Corp. announced its first foray into the world of blockchain technology after signaling that the company intended to go “all in” on the technology. In the company’s first move, IBM submitted 44,000 lines of code to the Linux Foundation’s open source Hyperledger Project, a collaborative effort to provide standards and a platform for developers to build auditable, trustless and secure ledgers (based on the blockchain technology).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmSw8ez5n_Q

On February 16, IBM made a shotgun blast of announcements involving the blockchain including an IBM cloud-based Blockchain-as-a-Service offering, Internet of Things (IoT) data using the Wastson IoT platform and IBM Garages for blockchain app design and implementation, which opened facilities in London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo.

The IBM Blockchain-as-a-Service platform runs on IBM’s Bluemix and provides fully integrated DevOps tools for creating, deploying, running and monitoring blockchain applications. For extra security involving regulated or sensitive data it is also possible to deploy blockchain apps on IBM z Systems. Blockchain apps can access cloud and z Systems servers via already existing APIs to support payment, settlements for supply chain and business processes.

The IoT offering from IBM would make it possible for ledgers to communicate and store historical data from sensor networks, RFID checkins, barcode-scan events and device-recorded data. Using blockchain-based technology, IBM hopes to enable smart contracts and auditable histories—this could be used to potentially track packages or processes moving through factories and supply chains. In the past IBM had teamed up with Samsung so show off the power of smart contracts and autonomous devices using the Ethereum blockchain at CES 2015 called Adept: a system that demonstrated a washing machine ordering its own detergent and fulfilling a payment contract to resupply itself using a smart contract.

To market this new initiative involving blockchain-based technology IBM asks, “What can the blockchain do for you?” Looking at the marketing, IBM intends to sell blockchain-based app platforms to business and enterprise vendors with an eye for delivering the best possible ecosystem to developers across a large number of industry verticals. These verticals largely cover financial institutions—enabling digital assets, securities, remittance, etc.—as well as government, industrial and healthcare. Although at the end of the list, IBM did not leave off gaming and music either.

Featured image credit: Dawson/Bloomberg News