How Cyber Fraud Inspired Techpreneur's Interest in Blockchain Technology

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Internet fraud or cyber fraud is the use of Internet services or software with Internet access to defraud victims or to otherwise take advantage of them.

How Cyber Fraud Inspired Techpreneur's Interest in Blockchain Technology
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According to the Federal Bureau of Intelligence. FBI, internet crime schemes steal millions of dollars each year from victims and continue to plague the Internet through various methods. Several high-profile methods include the following:

    Business E-Mail Compromise (BEC): A sophisticated scam targeting businesses working with foreign suppliers and companies that regularly perform wire transfer payments. The scam is carried out by compromising legitimate business e-mail accounts through social engineering or computer intrusion techniques to conduct unauthorized transfers of funds.

    Data Breach: A leak or spill of data which is released from a secure location to an untrusted environment. Data breaches can occur at the personal and corporate levels and involve sensitive, protected, or confidential information that is copied, transmitted, viewed, stolen, or used by an individual unauthorized to do so.

    Denial of Service: An interruption of an authorized user's access to any system or network, typically one caused with malicious intent.

    E-Mail Account Compromise (EAC): Similar to BEC, this scam targets the general public and professionals associated with, but not limited to, financial and lending institutions, real estate companies, and law firms. Perpetrators of EAC use compromised e-mails to request payments to fraudulent locations.

    Malware/Scareware: Malicious software that is intended to damage or disable computers and computer systems. Sometimes scare tactics are used by the perpetrators to solicit funds from victims.

    Phishing/Spoofing: Both terms deal with forged or faked electronic documents. Spoofing generally refers to the dissemination of e-mail which is forged to appear as though it was sent by someone other than the actual source.

Ransomware and CyberFraud
Ransome Ware - thewallstreetjournal.com

Phishing, also referred to as vishing, smishing, or pharming, is often used in conjunction with a spoofed e-mail. It is the act of sending an e-mail falsely claiming to be an established legitimate business in an attempt to deceive the unsuspecting recipient into divulging personal, sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, and bank account information after directing the user to visit a specified website.

The website, however, is not genuine and was set up only as an attempt to steal the user's information.

    Ransomware: A form of malware targeting both human and technical weaknesses in organizations and individual networks in an effort to deny the availability of critical data and/or systems.

Ransomware is frequently delivered through spear phishing emails to end users, resulting in the rapid encryption of sensitive files on a corporate network.

When the victim organization determines they are no longer able to access their data, the cyber perpetrator demands the payment of a ransom, typically in virtual currency such as Bitcoin, at which time the actor will purportedly provide an avenue to the victim to regain access to their data.

Recently, Nigeria's Economic and Financial Crime Commission arrested five alleged internet fraudsters on an intelligence linking them to online fraudulent activities and alleged involvement in a romance scam. The five suspects were apprehended in different areas of Lagos during a raid by operatives. Part of the report said "investigation revealed that Nwokorie was posing as a female American citizen and sending photos as a pornstar to defraud his victim while Onyebuchi was engaging in a love scam as well as forging foreign cheques."

In an interview with Tribune Newspapers, Tunde Aderemi Ibrahim, popularly known as TundeBuremo, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of LoadNG Automated Systems, a Nigeria-based cryptocurrency company expanding its reach in Nigeria and other African countries narrated how he lost his hard-earned coin to scammers on the internet after a web development gig for a client in the United states of America when he was to receive his payment.

According to him,

  "This challenge (of getting paid for freelance jobs) was experienced first-hand by myself after I finished a web development gig for a client in the United states of America.
"He was to pay me $500 at that time, so he went to make the transfer directly through a Bitcoin ATM to my Bitcoin wallet, to my greatest surprise, more than $100 which amounts to 20 per cent had been deducted as charge.

  "I was very discouraged until I was presented with another challenge of converting the already reduced Bitcoin to Naira. I lost the hard-earned coin eventually to scammers on the internet."
Mr. Aderemi said he felt the pains of other freelancers in the hands of scammers and as a tech entrepreneur, he decided to change the narrative by launching LoadNG.

"As a tech entrepreneur, I decided I was going to change the narrative forever. That was when the development of LoadNG began years back."
LoadNG is the most automated way of selling Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies (digital currency) in Nigeria. The payment system is built on Blockchain Technology.

A blockchain is a growing list of records called blocks, that are linked using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a timestamp, and transaction data, according to Wikipedia.

"Our interest in digital currency is because it is the future. Bitcoin is the future of finances all over the world. The world is going to the stage bitcoin will be used for day to day transactions.

"The world will be technologically powered whether we like it or not. You can see it with the emergence of new brands and startups.


Several Cyber crime reports and cases abounds on the webspace and many solutions like LoadNG proffered.


The main purpose of the software is to detect advanced cryptojacking malware.
“the BlackBerry Optics Context Analysis Engine (CAE) leverages unique CPU telemetry from Intel® Threat Detection Technology (Intel® TDT) to provide enterprises and SMBs unparalleled detection of cryptojacking attempts.
Can the internet and cyber space ever be secured?

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