The Tornado Cash co-founder is scheduled to go to trial on Monday, but his defense attorneys are still waiting on rulings for motions over witnesses in the case. Attorneys representing Tornado Cash co-founder and developer Roman Storm have suggested they may request a brief continuance for his criminal trial if a judge denies a motion to exclude a particular witness. In a Thursday filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), Storm’s legal team moved to exclude testimony from an unnamed witness who is the “claimed perpetrator of an alleged hack who allegedly used Tornado Cash.” His attorneys argued that prosecutors disclosed the witness after a scheduled deadline, also claiming their testimony could be “highly prejudicial” to Storm. “[The testimony] would be unfairly prejudicial as it would likely confuse and mislead the jurors into believing that Mr. Storm was involved in the underlying purported hack or intended to facilitate it, which is not true,” said the Thursday filing. ...
Social engineering scams, from the Meeten campaign to fake crypto support scams, have become a troubling occurrence in crypto. Threat actors are using an elaborate social engineering scheme to target crypto users and drain their wallets, according to a Thursday report from cybersecurity company Darktrace. The company wrote that the techniques are similar to those used by “Traffer Groups,” which use malware to steal credentials and data. The social engineering scheme involves gaining the trust of users by posing as representatives from fake startup companies in the industries of AI, gaming, Web3 and social media. Compromised X accounts are often involved, and the threat actors supplement the fraud with Medium articles and GitHub entries. “Each campaign typically starts with a victim being contacted through X messages, Telegram or Discord,” the report reads. “A fake employee of the company will contact a victim asking to test out their software in exchange for a cryptocurrency payment.” Read more