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At Request of U.S., Russia Rounds Up 14 REvil Ransomware Affiliates

vendredi 14 janvier 2022 à 23:41

The Russian government said today it arrested 14 people accused of working for “REvil,” a particularly aggressive ransomware group that has extorted hundreds of millions of dollars from victim organizations. The Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said the actions were taken in response to a request from U.S. officials, but many experts believe the crackdown is part of an effort to reduce tensions over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to station 100,000 troops along the nation’s border with Ukraine.

The FSB headquarters at Lubyanka Square, Moscow. Image: Wikipedia.

The FSB said it arrested 14 REvil ransomware members, and searched more than two dozen addresses in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Leningrad and Lipetsk. As part of the raids, the FSB seized more than $600,000 US dollars, 426 million rubles (~$USD 5.5 million), 500,000 euros, and 20 “premium cars” purchased with funds obtained from cybercrime.

“The search activities were based on the appeal of the US authorities, who reported on the leader of the criminal community and his involvement in encroaching on the information resources of foreign high-tech companies by introducing malicious software, encrypting information and extorting money for its decryption,” the FSB said. “Representatives of the US competent authorities have been informed about the results of the operation.”

The FSB did not release the names of any of the individuals arrested, although a report from the Russian news agency TASS mentions two defendants: Roman Gennadyevich Muromsky, and Andrey Sergeevich Bessonov. Russian media outlet RIA Novosti released video footage from some of the raids:

REvil is widely thought to be a reincarnation of GandCrab, a Russian-language ransomware affiliate program that bragged of stealing more than $2 billion when it closed up shop in the summer of 2019. For roughly the next two years, REvil’s “Happy Blog” would churn out press releases naming and shaming dozens of new victims each week. A February 2021 analysis from researchers at IBM found the REvil gang earned more than $120 million in 2020 alone.

But all that changed last summer, when REvil associates working with another ransomware group — DarkSide — attacked Colonial Pipeline, causing fuel shortages and price spikes across the United States. Just months later, a multi-country law enforcement operation allowed investigators to hack into the REvil gang’s operations and force the group offline.

In November 2021, Europol announced it arrested seven REvil affliates who collectively made more than $230 million worth of ransom demands since 2019. At the same time, U.S. authorities unsealed two indictments against a pair of accused REvil cybercriminals, which referred to the men as “REvil Affiliate #22” and “REvil Affiliate #23.”

It is clear that U.S. authorities have known for some time the real names of REvil’s top captains and moneymakers. Last fall, President Biden told Putin that he expects Russia to act when the United States shares information on specific Russians involved in ransomware activity.

So why now? Russia has amassed approximately 100,000 troops along its southern border with Ukraine, and diplomatic efforts to defuse the situation have reportedly broken down. The Washington Post and other media outlets today report that the Biden administration has accused Moscow of sending saboteurs into Eastern Ukraine to stage an incident that could give Putin a pretext for ordering an invasion.

“The most interesting thing about these arrests is the timing,” said Kevin Breen, director of threat research at Immersive Labs. “For years, Russian Government policy on cybercriminals has been less than proactive to say the least. With Russia and the US currently at the diplomatic table, these arrests are likely part of a far wider, multi-layered, political negotiation.”

President Biden has warned that Russia can expect severe sanctions should it choose to invade Ukraine. But Putin in turn has said such sanctions could cause a complete break in diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder of and former chief technology officer for the security firm CrowdStrike, called the REvil arrests in Russia “ransomware diplomacy.”

“This is Russian ransomware diplomacy,” Alperovitch said on Twitter. “It is a signal to the United States — if you don’t enact severe sanctions against us for invasion of Ukraine, we will continue to cooperate with you on ransomware investigations.”

The REvil arrests were announced as many government websites in Ukraine were defaced by hackers with an ominous message warning Ukrainians that their personal data was being uploaded to the Internet. “Be afraid and expect the worst,” the message warned.

Experts say there is good reason for Ukraine to be afraid. Ukraine has long been used as the testing grounds for Russian offensive hacking capabilities. State-backed Russian hackers have been blamed for the Dec. 23, 2015 cyberattack on Ukraine’s power grid that left 230,000 customers shivering in the dark.

The warning left behind on Ukrainian government websites that were defaced in the last 24 hours. The same statement is written in Ukrainian, Russian and Polish.

Russia also has been suspected of releasing NotPetya, a large-scale cyberattack initially aimed at Ukrainian businesses that ended up creating an extremely disruptive and expensive global malware outbreak.

Although there has been no clear attribution of these latest attacks to Russia, there is reason to suspect Russia’s hand, said David Salvo, deputy director of The Alliance for Securing Democracy.

“These are tried and true Russian tactics. Russia used cyber operations and information operations in the run-up to its invasion of Georgia in 2008. It has long waged massive cyberattacks against Ukrainian infrastructure, as well as information operations targeting Ukrainian soldiers and Ukrainian citizens. And it is completely unsurprising that it would use these tactics now when it is clear Moscow is looking for any pretext to invade Ukraine again and cast blame on the West in its typical cynical fashion.”

Who is the Network Access Broker ‘Wazawaka?’

mercredi 12 janvier 2022 à 06:17

In a great many ransomware attacks, the criminals who pillage the victim’s network are not the same crooks who gained the initial access to the victim organization. More commonly, the infected PC or stolen VPN credentials the gang used to break in were purchased from a cybercriminal middleman known as an initial access broker. This post examines some of the clues left behind by “Wazawaka,” the hacker handle chosen by a major access broker in the Russian-speaking cybercrime scene.

Wazawaka has been a highly active member of multiple cybercrime forums over the past decade, but his favorite is the Russian-language community Exploit. Wazawaka spent his early days on Exploit and other forums selling distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that could knock websites offline for about USD $80 a day. But in more recent years, Wazawaka has focused on peddling access to organizations and to databases stolen from hacked companies.

“Come, rob, and get dough!,” reads a thread started by Wazawaka on Exploit in March 2020, in which he sold access to a Chinese company with more than $10 billion in annual revenues. “Show them who is boss.”

According to their posts on Exploit, Wazawaka has worked with at least two different ransomware affiliate programs, including LockBit. Wazawaka said LockBit had paid him roughly $500,000 in commissions for the six months leading up to September 2020.

Wazawaka also said he’d teamed up with DarkSide, the ransomware affiliate group responsible for the six-day outage at Colonial Pipeline last year that caused nationwide fuel shortages and price spikes. The U.S. Department of State has since offered a $5 million reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of any DarkSide affiliates.

Wazawaka seems to have adopted the uniquely communitarian view that when organizations being held for ransom decline to cooperate or pay up, any data stolen from the victim should be published on the Russian cybercrime forums for all to plunder — not privately sold to the highest bidder. In thread after thread on the crime forum XSS, Wazawaka’s alias “Uhodiransomwar” can be seen posting download links to databases from companies that have refused to negotiate after five days.

“The only and the main principle of ransomware is: the information that you steal should never be sold,” Uhodiransomwar wrote in August 2020. “The community needs to receive it absolutely free of charge if the ransom isn’t paid by the side that this information is stolen from.”

Wazawaka hasn’t always been so friendly to other cybercrooks. Over the past ten years, his contact information has been used to register numerous phishing domains intended to siphon credentials from people trying to transact on various dark web marketplaces. In 2018, Wazawaka registered a slew of domains spoofing the real domain for the Hydra dark web market. In 2014, Wazawaka confided to another crime forum member via private message that he made good money stealing accounts from drug dealers on these marketplaces.

“I used to steal their QIWI accounts with up to $500k in them,” Wazawaka recalled. “A dealer would never go to the cops and tell them he was selling stuff online and someone stole his money.”

WHO IS WAZAWAKA?

Wazawaka used multiple email addresses and nicknames on several Russian crime forums, but data collected by cybersecurity firm Constella Intelligence show that Wazawaka’s alter egos always used one of three fairly unique passwords: 2k3x8x57, 2k3X8X57, and 00virtual.

Those three passwords were used by one or all of Wazawaka’s email addresses on the crime forums over the years, including wazawaka@yandex.ru, mixseo@mail.ru, mixseo@yandex.ru, mixfb@yandex.ru.

That last email address was used almost a decade ago to register a Vkontakte (Russian version of Facebook) account under the name Mikhail “Mix” Matveev. The phone number tied to that Vkontakte account — 7617467845 — was assigned by the Russian telephony provider MegaFon to a resident in Khakassia, situated in the southwestern part of Eastern Siberia.

DomainTools.com [an advertiser on this site] reports mixfb@yandex.ru was used to register three domains between 2008 and 2010: ddosis.ru, best-stalker.com, and cs-arena.org. That last domain was originally registered in 2009 to a Mikhail P. Matveyev, in Abakan, Khakassia.

Mikhail Matveev is not the most unusual name in Russia, but other clues help narrow things down quite a bit. For example, early in his postings to Exploit, Wazawaka can be seen telling members that he can be contacted via the ICQ instant message account 902228.

An Internet search for Wazawaka’s ICQ number brings up a 2009 account for a Wazawaka on a now defunct discussion forum about Kopyovo-a, a town of roughly 4,400 souls in the Russian republic of Khakassia:

MIKHAIL’S MIX

Also around 2009, someone using the nickname Wazawaka and the 902228 ICQ address started posting to Russian social media networks trying to convince locals to frequent the website “fureha.ru,” which was billed as another website catering to residents of Khakassia.

According to the Russian domain watcher 1stat.ru, fureha.ru was registered in January 2009 to the email address mix@devilart.net and the phone number +79617467845, which is the same number tied to the Mikhail “Mix” Matveev Vkontakte account.

DomainTools.com says the mix@devilart.net address was used to register two domains: one called badamania[.]ru, and a defunct porn site called tvporka[.]ru. The phone number tied to that porn site registration back in 2010 was 79235810401, also issued by MegaFon in Khakassia.

A search in Skype for that number shows that it was associated more than a decade ago with the username “matveevatanya1.” It was registered to a now 29-year-old Tatayana Matveeva Deryabina, whose Vkontakte profile says she currently resides in Krasnoyarsk, the largest city that is closest to Abakan and Abaza.

It seems likely that Tatayana is a relative of Mikhail Matveev, perhaps even his sister. Neither responded to requests for comment. In 2009, a Mikhail Matveev from Abaza, Khakassia registered the username Wazawaka on weblancer.net, a freelance job exchange for Russian IT professionals. The Weblancer account says Wazawaka is currently 33 years old.

In March 2019, Wazawaka explained a lengthy absence on Exploit by saying he’d fathered a child. “I will answer everyone in a week or two,” the crime actor wrote. “Became a dad — went on vacation for a couple of weeks.”

One of the many email addresses Wazawaka used was devdelphi@yandex.ru, which is tied to a more recent but since-deleted Vkontakte account for a Mikhail Matveev and used the password 2k3X8X57. As per usual, I put together a mind map showing the connections referenced in this story:

A rough mind map of the connections mentioned in this story.

Analysts with cyber intelligence firm Flashpoint say Wazawaka’s postings on various Russian crime forums show he is proficient in many specializations, including botnet operations, keylogger malware, spam botnets, credential harvesting, Google Analytics manipulation, selling databases for spam operations, and launching DDoS attacks.

Flashpoint says it is likely Wazawaka/Mix/M1x has shared cybercriminal identities and accounts with multiple other forum members, most of whom appear to have been partners in his DDoS-for-hire business a decade ago. For example, Flashpoint points to an Antichat forum thread from 2009 where members said M1x worked on his DDoS service with a hacker by the nickname “Vedd,” who was reputedly also a resident of Abakan.

STAY  TRUE, & MOTHER RUSSIA WILL HELP YOU

All of this is academic, of course, provided Mr. Wazawaka chooses to a) never leave Russia and b) avoid cybercrime activities that target Russian citizens. In a January 2021 thread on Exploit regarding the arrest of an affiliate for the NetWalker ransomware program and its subsequent demise, Wazawaka seems already resigned those limitations.

“Don’t shit where you live, travel local, and don’t go abroad,” Wazawaka said of his own personal mantra.

Which might explain why Wazawaka is so lackadaisical about hiding and protecting his cybercriminal identities: Incredibly, Wazawaka’s alter ego on the forum XSS — Uhodiransomware — still uses the same password on the forum that he used for his Vkontakte account 10 years ago. Lucky for him, XSS also demands a one-time code from his mobile authentication app.

The second step of logging into Wazawaka’s account on XSS (Uhodiransomwar).

Wazawaka said NetWalker’s closure was the result of its administrator (a.k.a. “Bugatti”) getting greedy, and then he proceeds to preach about the need to periodically re-brand one’s cybercriminal identity.

“I’ve had some business with Bugatti,” Wazawaka said. “The guy got too rich and began recruiting Americans as affiliate partners. What happened now is the result. That’s okay, though. I wish Bugatti to do some rebranding and start from the beginning 🙂 As for the servers that were seized, they should’ve hosted their admin panels in Russia to avoid getting their servers seized by INTERPOL, the FBI, or whatever.”

“Mother Russia will help you,” Wazawaka concluded. “Love your country, and you will always get away with everything.”

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy Who Is the Network Access Broker “Babam”?

‘Wormable’ Flaw Leads January 2022 Patch Tuesday

mardi 11 janvier 2022 à 23:18

Microsoft today released updates to plug nearly 120 security holes in Windows and supported software. Six of the vulnerabilities were publicly detailed already, potentially giving attackers a head start in figuring out how to exploit them in unpatched systems. More concerning, Microsoft warns that one of the flaws fixed this month is “wormable,” meaning no human interaction would be required for an attack to spread from one vulnerable Windows box to another.

Nine of the vulnerabilities fixed in this month’s Patch Tuesday received Microsoft’s “critical” rating, meaning malware or miscreants can exploit them to gain remote access to vulnerable Windows systems through no help from the user.

By all accounts, the most severe flaw addressed today is CVE-2022-21907, a critical, remote code execution flaw in the “HTTP Protocol Stack.” Microsoft says the flaw affects Windows 10 and Windows 11, as well as Server 2019 and Server 2022.

“While this is definitely more server-centric, remember that Windows clients can also run http.sys, so all affected versions are affected by this bug,” said Dustin Childs from Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative. “Test and deploy this patch quickly.”

Quickly indeed. In May 2021, Microsoft patched a similarly critical and wormable vulnerability in the HTTP Protocol Stack; less than a week later, computer code made to exploit the flaw was posted online.

Microsoft also fixed three more remote code execution flaws in Exchange Server, a technology that hundreds of thousands of organizations worldwide use to manage their email. Exchange flaws are a major target of malicious hackers. Almost a year ago, hundreds of thousands of Exchange servers worldwide were compromised by malware after attackers started mass-exploiting four zero-day flaws in Exchange.

Microsoft says the limiting factor with these three newly found Exchange flaws is that an attacker would need to be tied to the target’s network somehow to exploit them. But Satnam Narang at Tenable notes Microsoft has labeled all three Exchange flaws as “exploitation more likely.”

“One of the flaws, CVE-2022-21846, was disclosed to Microsoft by the National Security Agency,” Narang said. “Despite the rating, Microsoft notes the attack vector is adjacent, meaning exploitation will require more legwork for an attacker, unlike the ProxyLogon and ProxyShell vulnerabilities which were remotely exploitable.”

Security firm Rapid7 points out that roughly a quarter of the security updates this month address vulnerabilities in Microsoft’s Edge browser via Chromium.

“None of these have yet been seen exploited in the wild, though six were publicly disclosed prior to today,” Rapid7’s Greg Wiseman said. “This includes two Remote Code Execution vulnerabilities affecting open source libraries that are bundled with more recent versions of Windows: CVE-2021-22947, which affects the curl library, and CVE-2021-36976 which affects libarchive.”

Wiseman said slightly less scary than the HTTP Protocol Stack vulnerability is CVE-2022-21840, which affects all supported versions of Office, as well as Sharepoint Server.

“Exploitation would require social engineering to entice a victim to open an attachment or visit a malicious website,” he said. “Thankfully the Windows preview pane is not a vector for this attack.”

Other patches include fixes for .NET Framework, Microsoft Dynamics, Windows Hyper-V, Windows Defender, and the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). As usual, the SANS Internet Storm Center has a per-patch breakdown by severity and impact.

Standard disclaimer: Before you update Windows, please make sure you have backed up your system and/or important files. It’s not uncommon for a Windows update package to hose one’s system or prevent it from booting properly, and some updates have been known to erase or corrupt files.

So do yourself a favor and backup before installing any patches. Windows 10 even has some built-in tools to help you do that, either on a per-file/folder basis or by making a complete and bootable copy of your hard drive all at once.

And if you wish to ensure Windows has been set to pause updating so you can back up your files and/or system before the operating system decides to reboot and install patches on its own schedule, see this guide.

If you experience glitches or problems installing any of these patches this month, please consider leaving a comment about it below; there’s a decent chance other readers have experienced the same and may chime in here with useful tips.

500M Avira Antivirus Users Introduced to Cryptomining

samedi 8 janvier 2022 à 19:05

Many readers were surprised to learn recently that the popular Norton 360 antivirus suite now ships with a program which lets customers make money mining virtual currency. But Norton 360 isn’t alone in this dubious endeavor: Avira antivirus — which has built a base of 500 million users worldwide largely by making the product free — was recently bought by the same company that owns Norton 360 and is introducing its customers to a service called Avira Crypto.

Avira Crypto

Founded in 2006, Avira Operations GmbH & Co. KG is a German multinational software company best known for their Avira Free Security (a.k.a. Avira Free Antivirus). In January 2021, Avira was acquired by Tempe, Ariz.-based NortonLifeLock Inc., the same company that now owns Norton 360.

In 2017, the identity theft protection company LifeLock was acquired by Symantec Corp., which was renamed to NortonLifeLock in 2019. LifeLock is now included in the Norton 360 service; Avira offers users a similar service called Breach Monitor.

Like Norton 360, Avira comes with a cryptominer already installed, but customers have to opt in to using the service that powers it. Avira’s FAQ on its cryptomining service is somewhat sparse. For example, it doesn’t specify how much NortonLifeLock gets out of the deal (NortonLifeLock keeps 15 percent of any cryptocurrency mined by Norton Crypto).

“Avira Crypto allows you to use your computer’s idle time to mine the cryptocurrency Ethereum (ETH),” the FAQ explains. “Since cryptomining requires a high level of processing power, it is not suitable for users with an average computer. Even with compatible hardware, mining cryptocurrencies on your own can be less rewarding. Your best option is to join a mining pool that shares their computer power to improve their chance of mining cryptocurrency. The rewards are then distributed evenly to all members in the pool.”

NortonLifeLock hasn’t yet responded to requests for comment, so it’s unclear whether Avira uses the same cryptomining code as Norton Crypto. But there are clues that suggest that’s the case. NortonLifeLock announced Avira Crypto in late October 2021, but multiple other antivirus products have flagged Avira’s installer as malicious or unsafe for including a cryptominer as far back as Sept. 9, 2021.

Avira was detected as potentially unsafe for including a cryptominer back in Sept. 2021. Image: Virustotal.com.

The above screenshot was taken on Virustotal.com, a service owned by Google that scans submitted files against dozens of antivirus products. The detection report pictured was found by searching Virustotal for “ANvOptimusEnablementCuda,” a function included in the Norton Crypto mining component “Ncrypt.exe.”

Some longtime Norton customers took to NortonLifeLock’s online forum to express horror at the prospect of their antivirus product installing coin-mining software, regardless of whether the mining service was turned off by default.

“Norton should be DETECTING and killing off crypto mining hijacking, not installing their own,” reads a Dec. 28 thread on Norton’s forum titled “Absolutely furious.”

Others have charged that the crypto offering will end up costing customers more in electricity bills than they can ever hope to gain from letting their antivirus mine ETH. What’s more, there are hefty fees involved in moving any ETH mined by Norton or Avira Crypto to an account that the user can cash out, and many users apparently don’t understand they can’t cash out until they at least earn enough ETH to cover the fees.

In August 2021, NortonLifeLock said it had reached an agreement to acquire Avast, another longtime free antivirus product that also claims to have around 500 million users. It remains to be seen whether Avast Crypto will be the next brilliant offering from NortonLifeLock.

As mentioned in this week’s story on Norton Crypto, I get that participation in these cryptomining schemes is voluntary, but much of that ultimately hinges on how these crypto programs are pitched and whether users really understand what they’re doing when they enable them. But what bugs me most is they will be introducing hundreds of millions of perhaps less savvy Internet users to the world of cryptocurrency, which comes with its own set of unique security and privacy challenges that require users to “level up” their personal security practices in fairly significant ways.

Norton 360 Now Comes With a Cryptominer

jeudi 6 janvier 2022 à 18:26

Norton 360, one of the most popular antivirus products on the market today, has installed a cryptocurrency mining program on its customers’ computers. Norton’s parent firm says the cloud-based service that activates the program and allows customers to profit from the scheme — in which the company keeps 15 percent of any currencies mined — is “opt-in,” meaning users have to agree to enable it. But many Norton users complain the mining program is difficult to remove, and reactions from longtime customers have ranged from unease and disbelief to, “Dude, where’s my crypto?”

Norton 360 is owned by Tempe, Ariz.-based NortonLifeLock Inc. In 2017, the identity theft protection company LifeLock was acquired by Symantec Corp., which was renamed to NortonLifeLock in 2019 (LifeLock is now included in the Norton 360 service).

According to the FAQ posted on its site, “Norton Crypto” will mine Ethereum (ETH) cryptocurrency while the customer’s computer is idle. The FAQ also says Norton Crypto will only run on systems that meet certain hardware and software requirements (such as an NVIDIA graphics card with at least 6 GB of memory).

“Norton creates a secure digital Ethereum wallet for each user,” the FAQ reads. “The key to the wallet is encrypted and stored securely in the cloud. Only you have access to the wallet.”

NortonLifeLock began offering the mining service in July 2021, but the program gained broader attention on Jan. 4 when Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow tweeted that NortonCrypto would run by default for Norton 360 users.

NortonLifeLock says Norton Crypto is an opt-in feature only and is not enabled without user permission.

“If users have turned on Norton Crypto but no longer wish to use the feature, it can be disabled by temporarily shutting off ‘tamper protection’ (which allows users to modify the Norton installation) and deleting NCrypt.exe from your computer,” NortonLifeLock said in a written statement. However, many users have reported difficulty removing the mining program.

From reading user posts on the Norton Crypto community forum, it seems some longtime Norton customers were horrified at the prospect of their antivirus product installing coin-mining software, regardless of whether the mining service was turned off by default.

“How on Earth could anyone at Norton think that adding crypto mining within a security product would be a good thing?,” reads a Dec. 28 thread titled “Absolutely furious.”

“Norton should be DETECTING and killing off crypto mining hijacking, not installing their own,” the post reads. “The product people need firing. What’s the next ‘bright idea’? Norton Botnet? ‘ And I was just about to re-install Norton 360 too, but this has literally has caused me to no longer trust Norton and their direction.”

It’s an open question whether Norton Crypto users can expect to see much profit from participating in this scheme, at least in the short run. Mining cryptocurrencies basically involves using your computer’s spare resources to help validate financial transactions of other crypto users. Crypto mining causes one’s computer to draw more power, which can increase one’s overall electricity costs.

“Norton is pretty much amplifying energy consumption worldwide, costing their customers more in electricity use than the customer makes on the mining, yet allowing Norton to make a ton of profit,” tweeted security researcher Chris Vickery. “It’s disgusting, gross, and brand-suicide.”

Then there’s the matter of getting paid. Norton Crypto lets users withdraw their earnings to an account at cryptocurrency platform CoinBase, but as Norton Crypto’s FAQ rightly points out, there are coin mining fees as well as transaction costs to transfer Ethereum.

“The coin mining fee is currently 15% of the crypto allocated to the miner,” the FAQ explains. “Transfers of cryptocurrencies may result in transaction fees (also known as “gas” fees) paid to the users of the cryptocurrency blockchain network who process the transaction. In addition, if you choose to exchange crypto for another currency, you may be required to pay fees to an exchange facilitating the transaction. Transaction fees fluctuate due to cryptocurrency market conditions and other factors. These fees are not set by Norton.”

Which might explain why so many Norton Crypto users have taken to the community’s online forum to complain they were having trouble withdrawing their earnings. Those gas fees are the same regardless of the amount of crypto being moved, so the system simply blocks withdrawals if the amount requested can’t cover the transfer fees.

I guess what bothers me most about Norton Crypto is that it will be introducing millions of perhaps less savvy Internet users to the world of cryptocurrency, which comes with its own set of unique security and privacy challenges that require users to “level up” their personal security practices in fairly significant ways.

Several of my elder family members and closest friends are longtime Norton users who renew their subscription year after year (despite my reminding them that it’s way cheaper just to purchase it again each year as a new user). None of them are particularly interested in or experts at securing their computers and digital lives, and the thought of them opening CoinBase accounts and navigating that space is terrifying.

Big Yellow is not the only brand that’s cashing in on investor fervor over cryptocurrencies and hoping to appeal to a broader (or maybe just older) audience: The venerable electronics retailer RadioShack, which relaunched in 2020 as an online-focused brand, now says it plans to chart a future as a cryptocurrency exchange.

“RadioShack’s argument is basically that as a very old brand, it’s primed to sell old CEOs on cryptocurrency,” writes Adi Robertson for The Verge.

“Too many [cryptocurrency companies] focused on speculation and not enough on making the ‘old-school’ customer feel comfortable,” the company’s website states, claiming that the average “decision-making” corporate CEO is 68 years old. “The older generation simply doesn’t trust the new-fangled ideas of the Bitcoin youth.”