Cyber

Cyber-enabled fraud is rapidly expanding in scale and sophistication as criminals exploit digital platforms, instant payments, and virtual assets to move illicit proceeds across borders, an intergovernmental watchdog said on Tuesday.  

A 42-year-old American citizen suspected by French investigators of leading a vast international money laundering network known as “Dark Bank” has been extradited from the United States to France, Le Monde reported.

Scanned passports and other identity documents belonging to hundreds of participants in Abu Dhabi’s flagship investment conference were exposed online via an unprotected cloud server linked to Abu Dhabi Finance Week (ADFW).

An Asian cyber-espionage group spent the past year breaking into computer systems linked to governments and critical infrastructure organizations in more than 37 countries, according to new research from Palo Alto Networks Inc. cited by Bloomberg. 

Chinese-language money laundering networks have become a central conduit for illicit cryptocurrency activity, processing an estimated 20% of known on-chain laundering over the past five years and accelerating far faster than illicit financial flows tied to centralized exchanges.

A loose ecosystem of young cybercriminals known as “the Com” is increasingly being linked to a widening range of online and real-world offenses, from ransomware-style corporate attacks to the hacking of Pornhub users’ data, according to The Guardian.

Google is suing an alleged Chinese-speaking cybercriminal group it says helped drive a sprawling phishing operation that targeted Americans with fraudulent text messages impersonating government agencies and major companies, NBC News reported.

The social-media giant Meta has tolerated widespread advertising fraud tied to Chinese customers in order to protect billions of dollars in revenue, even after internal teams repeatedly flagged the activity as problematic, Reuters reported. 

A top Democratic senator has warned that Chinese intelligence is still inside U.S. telecommunications networks as part of a sweeping cyber campaign known as “Salt Typhoon,” saying the operation gives Beijing access to the unencrypted communications of almost anyone in America, the Financial Times reported.

The United States, Britain and Australia have imposed coordinated sanctions on Russian technology companies and individuals accused of providing key online infrastructure for ransomware and other cyberattacks, Reuters reported.