Week 8 – Cybersecurity

Cyber threats are extremely dangerous for anyone and any business, a lot of bad behavior within cybersecurity can be fraud, phishing, cyber attacks, and plenty more. Recently in Florida, three men were charged $100 million for cryptocurrency fraud. Cryptocurrency is a digital/virtual form of currency that is secured by cryptography, in other words, it is digital money secured by encryption. Emerson Pires, Flavio Goncalves, and Joshua David Nicholas, three were charged in Miami, Florida with a conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The jury also charges Pires and Goncalves with conspiracy to commit international money laundering, however, this does not apply to Nicholas. “According to the indictment, Pires and Goncalves founded EmpiresX, a cryptocurrency investment platform and unregistered securities offering.  Pires and Goncalves, along with Nicholas, the company’s so-called “Head Trader,” fraudulently promoted EmpiresX.  They misled investors about, among other things, a purported proprietary trading “bot” that they claimed could generate guaranteed returns to investors in EmpiresX.” (United States Department of Justice, 2022). Although the three men have not been found guilty since indictments contain mere allegations and defendants are innocent unless and until found guilty in a court of law. The FBI and HSI Miami Special Agent in Charge Anthony Salisbury make this a warning to anyone who wants to grow through cryptocurrency and take advantage of innocent investors. There has yet to be an official outcome, even if the three men are found guilty, this will forever damage their reputation by becoming untrustworthy due to this incident; personally, I would find it very hard to trust someone that has allegations this large. I hope to find out that these men are held accountable for these allegations, whether guilty or innocent, they still took advantage of many people and it caused damage to innocent people’s lives! I feel like from this case, we should really be careful when it comes to putting certain information out there, especially when it comes to banking information. It is very easy for some to invest money in something and it turns into fraud, like in this case. Along with being careful with any information that we put out, excluding banking information, it can be very easy for someone to take advantage of what you share online or even on a public computer. I know that from reading this case, I will be extremely careful with what I do while investing money, especially since I am still very young and I do not want to fall into fraud like the investors in this case, who lost a lot of money.

 

References

TechTerms. (2015). Cryptography. Cryptography Definition. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://techterms.com/definition/cryptography 

United States Department of Justice. (2022, June 30). Three men charged in $100 million cryptocurrency fraud. The United States Department of Justice. Retrieved July 10, 2022, from https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdfl/pr/three-men-charged-100-million-cryptocurrency-fraud