The Crypto Basic

More than a thousand companies are affected by the cyberattack on the American software company Kaseya. REvil hackers are linked with Russia hacking group.

On July 2, Kaseya specialists recommended their customers to disable the software due to a possible attack, which was later confirmed. The company said that the hackers’ actions affected a small group of its customers, but the scale of the attack increased as the investigation progressed.

According to Bloomberg, hackers attacked eight companies providing IT support, and gained access to the networks of thousands of clients of these organizations.

“This is one of the most broadly impactful, non-nation state executed, attacks we have ever seen and it appears purely designed to extract money,” said Andrew Howard, chief executive officer of Switzerland-based Kudelski Security, a provider of managed cybersecurity services. “It is difficult to image a better way for an attacker to distribute malware than through trusted IT providers.”

Cybersecurity experts immediately assumed that the hacker group REvil was behind the attack. Later, Huntress Labs discovered on a darknet hacker site a ransom demand of $70 million in bitcoins for decrypting the files of all victims.

REvil has named its price. $70,000,000 USD in Bitcoin.

Attached image is directly from REvils website: pic.twitter.com/1kOxaKxraS

— vx-underground (@vxunderground) July 5, 2021

REvil (also known as Sodinokibi) is associated with the Russian Federation due to the fact that they do not attack Russian organizations or enterprises in the countries of the former USSR and often publish messages in Russian.

US President Joe Biden said he was not sure that the Russian authorities were involved in the attack on Kaseya. He also said that US intelligence agencies are investigating the incident.

Recall that in March, REvil encrypted the files of Acer and demanded to pay $50 million in Monero cryptocurrency, in April the group attacked the Apple.

In June, the world’s largest meat processing company, JBS, fell victim to REvil and paid hackers a ransom of $11 million in bitcoins.

According to btc.com data, the Bitcoin network adjusted to the massive drop in hash rate, the network’s mining difficulty dropped by -27.9%. This is the biggest drop in mining difficulty since the network went live in 2009.

We just witnessed the largest ever downward #Bitcoin difficulty adjustment 27.94%#Bitcoin just doing it's thing

— Danny Scott (@CoinCornerDanny) July 3, 2021

The Bitcoin network updates its mining difficulty level every 2,016 blocks, roughly every two weeks. This is designed to ensure that blocks are produced every ten minutes despite a fluctuating hash rate. For this reason, the hash rate has been volatile throughout Bitcoin history. Since the previous adjustment on June 13, Bitcoin’s seven-day moving average hashrate has dropped from 136.47 EH/s to 85 EH/s: a 35% drop.

Recently Bitcoin network faced two negative adjustments, -5.30 percent on June 14 and -15.97 percent on May 30, And on July 3rd, 2021 the network’s mining difficulty dropped by -27.9%.

Estimated next BTC mining difficulty, which will be calculated after 16 days hints further -28.39% drop.

BTC mining difficulty which is a measure of how difficult it is for miners to mine a new block and add it to the blockchain dropped from 19.93 trillion to 14.3 trillion in less than a month.

This decline was largely due to a crackdown on Bitcoin mining in China. Saturday’s record decline was by a much higher percentage than had been predicted a week ago.

The said low hashrate led to a slower block generation rate as the remaining hashrate could not keep up with the high difficulty level. For the past two weeks, according to calculation, blocks have been produced on average almost every 13.9 minutes, which is much higher than usual. On July 1, it even took 129 minutes to create a block, the longest since 2011, but it’s worth noting that multiple factors come into play here, including the natural variance in block times.

A lot of Bitcoin miners are shifting to the U.S, because of the ongoing crackdown in China.

Cynthia Lummis, The Republican U.S. Senator of Wyoming has invited Bitcoin miners in her recent tweet.

The Senator tweeted:

“If you are in the Bitcoin MINING space, please reach out. We WANT you in Wyoming”.

She said:

“Don’t judge Bitcoin mining as an energy bad guy, there’s a lot of innovation going on that proves otherwise.”

PS – If you are in the #Bitcoin mining space, please reach out. We WANT you in Wyoming. https://t.co/OUPAEYTXTG

— Cynthia Lummis (@CynthiaMLummis) July 3, 2021

Previously Cynthia Lummis said she keeps Bitcoins to secure retirement and urge fellow citizens to follow her example. She expressed her thoughts on National TV.

Read Details: The Bitcoin Senator, Cynthia Lummis: Bitcoin Is Great For Retirement And Long-Term Savings

Senator Cynthia Lummis: "I encourage people to buy and hold. I encourage them to save #bitcoin for their retirement, for their future…I only have, I think, five bitcoin."

.@CynthiaMLummis @SenLummis pic.twitter.com/BiDvjjxQyh

— Neil Jacobs ? (@NeilJacobs) June 29, 2021

According to the senator, Bitcoin is great for long-term and retirement savings. Lammis said that she currently owns five BTC, and she bought the first Bitcoin for $330.

She encourages Americans to buy and store bitcoins for their old age.

“I am concerned that all of our pension funds are denominated in US dollars. To diversify, you need to use a wide variety of assets so as not to store all your eggs in one basket. And bitcoin is one of the most reliable store of value in the long term, ”said Lammis.

Recall that in February, Cynthia Lammis participated in the Financial Innovation Forum, the purpose of which was to raise awareness of the authorities about digital assets.