Blue Whale - A Game

            In this cyber world, everyday there is a sensational news. Ransomware, Malware, Data Leak, Company Hack and so on. Today there is a most sensational news came up that is related to Cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is the mechanism of targeting one through social media or computer and make them feel depressed or giving mental torture. The news that came today is just about a game. Yea its just a game.

            The game is actually like a dare game, you will be given with tasks to complete and send proof to your assigned curator. 50 tasks, 50 days thats it. The last task that is 50th task is KILL YOURSELF. It is real that many committed suicide, a teenager from Mumbai committed suicide who is a school going boy.

             The game is #Bluewhale and it has been there since 2013 hosted in Russian social networking site. It is an app now one can download the app to play, first the app will throw you a warning "Do you really want to play? If you start, there is no going back". If the player replies YES then a link will be sent upon clicking a new curator will be assigned. Tasks will start coming everyday. Initial tasks are acceptable but as moving ahead the tasks are like

Cut your lips.
Hurt you and make yourself sick.
Cut your body at various places.
Last but not least 50th task - Kill yourself by jumping from building or going under train like that.

              Ok what if the player is not accepting the tasks, he / she will be given a warning "All your information are with us we will kill your family members" Its like a blackmail from that point and initial term is that you should not disclose about this game to anyone.

              According to many sources, the link sent by them during curator assigning is a malware link and collecting data from the mobile and also it is a spyware that track victim activities.

              Many posted blood pictures, hand cut, lip cut and many more. After the guy suicide in Mumbai it has become a serious issue and need to be addressed. Instagram restricting viewing of hashtag #bluewhale and #blue_whale by showing a warning "It may contain irrelevant post" and also there is a override button by which you can view the posts anyway if you wish.

               The below screenshot consists of few sample tasks

                     Nearly 130 people committed suicide till date as per many sources and users are requested not to play the game or to download the app that may cause damage to user directly.

P.S: The post is to create awareness only and author of this post is not responsible for any damage if occurred. Be cautious and never ever try to play the game out of curiosity.

Mining Cryptocurrency.

          After the cyber attack #Wannacry, it is not ransomware that hit people a lot but also Bitcoin. Earlier post was just a walkthrough about cryptocurrency. Let's have a detailed look about mining cryptocurrency.

          Cryptocurrencies are distributed and maintained by peer to peer concept across globe. There are many coins for which the source is also available. More famous coins are Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dash coin, Zcash and Ethereum. All transactions made using cryptocurrency must be validated by someone (node in network) so that no fake transaction will be carried out (Think of forged cheque).

            For validating the transaction a hash must be cracked. For those who has no idea every transaction will have a secret number hidden in the form of hash, one who cracks the hidden number gets rewarded. The reward is the cryptocurrency. Cracking hash requires enormous amount of computing power since it is purely a brute force analysis.

            There are three types of mining: Pool mining, Solo Mining and Cloud mining.

Solo Mining: If you crack a block using your resource you will get a bulk reward, but the probability is very low and if you use low computation machine even after 10 years you won't even earn a penny...

Pool Mining: Preferred by many since we can get a routine income based on your computation power, the greater the computation power the greater the reward, but it involves pool fees that has to be paid.

Cloud Mining: For those who cannot afford for resource they can get the service and get paid for what package they choose during subscription. Imagine it as Azure or any other cloud where we pay for what we use.

           The transaction that needs to be validated are in the form of block. A block can contain more transactions. Each time you crack a hash, difficulty of hash increases, so if you maintain same resource but peers across globe are updating their resource then your earning will drastically fall.

           Earlier days people used Computer CPU to mine, then they started using GPU which is more powerful than CPU and there are now many ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) available for mining which are capable of only mining, they cant do any other job.

           Can you imagine what is the world power used for Bitcoin mining... Its 1.4 PetaHash/Sec.. World power changes from currency to currency. Mining is not illegal but holding cryptocurrency is illegal in many countries.

            Almost entire Darkweb is driven by Cryptocurrency only and there are also many exchange service available which will take your cryptocurrency and pay you equivalent real money. If you are having any question or suggestion you can post a comment.

P.S: The post is to create awareness and not to create any negative impact.

Cryptocurrency - A small walkthrough.

          Everyone must be knowing about cryptocurrency by now, atleast heard of Bitcoins. It is the currency that acts as  ransom for mostly all ransomwares available. Let's have a short walkthrough about cryptocurrency.

          Consider INR, they are issued by Reserve Bank of India and they regulate amount of currency that is in circulation, whereas these cryptocurrencies are not owned by any Government or Bank, they are decentralised.

           Ok you are telling me it is decentralised then how someone is telling i own this much bitcoin? All transactions are managed by ledgers. If you are sending money to me it will be marked in ledger. Ok who owns the ledger? There are millions of nodes (Computers) having the ledger across globe, one entry made to the ledger will be updated in all the ledgers available across globe.

           What are all the ways to own cryptocurrency?

1. You can purchase it with real money.

2. You can MINE it.

           Second choice is preferred by many.. but i am not gonna deal mining topic due to some reasons...

           Can i exchange bitcoin if i mine or buy in future to real money? Yes you can for sure unless you forget your wallet id and Government don't ban exchange services..

           Is cryptocurrency safe? Since there is no centralised party and its purely machine dependent one can't provide 100 percent safety but it is safe..

          Is there any coin other than Bitcoin? There are many many coins like Bitcoin...

         Any other doubts or comments or suggestions.. mostly welcome. Thank you

P.S: This post is to create awareness only and not to create any negative impact.

Should I know about Wannacry ?

           Its been a long time since i blogged. Time to continue again i guess due to the havoc created by the latest virus or malware or to be specific ransomware. You got it... #Wannacry Ransomware.

           Ransomware is not new to cyber world it has been there for atleast 3 years. By this time I am sure all must be knowing about working of ransomware and its impact towards data.

            If you are affected by Wannacry Ransomware.. you must be thankful since it is just first alarm for cyber warfare, make sure you are safe hereafter by making some changes. Anyhow one cant be 100 percent safe but can recover fastly.

            Steps to follow to avoid ransomware attack is as follows

1. Backup! Backup! Backup!... Oh wait dont copy data in internal hard disk. Do it with external HDD

2. Get a paid.. you heard paid.. not cracked Antivirus

3. Update! Update! .. Update your Windows or any applications you use. If you know Microsoft released patch for this vulnerability before itself those who failed to update are the victim.

4. No one in cyber world is so generous to give you free offers or say 1 crore through mail which you are not even aware of.

             I know this post is too late for wannacry ransomware but one can prevent future attacks if they take actions now. 

P.S: This post is to create awareness only and not to be missued.