Cybercrime

A hacker exploited Anthropic PBC’s Claude chatbot to help breach multiple Mexican government agencies and steal a large trove of sensitive data, including tax and voter information.

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.  

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).

Paxful Holdings Inc., a peer-to-peer virtual currency trading platform, was sentenced on Tuesday to pay a $4-million criminal penalty after pleading guilty to conspiracies tied to illegal prostitution, anti-money-laundering failures and transmitting criminal proceeds.

Criminal syndicates operating scam centers in Southeast Asia are adopting inexpensive artificial-intelligence tools to widen their reach and keep operations running even as governments intensify crackdowns, senior Interpol officials told Bloomberg.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will fast-track approvals for defense-focused investment funds in an effort to make it easier for investors to access stocks and bonds tied to Europe’s accelerating rearmament.

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. 

Spanish National Police, working with Germany’s Bavarian State Criminal Police Office and supported by Europol, arrested 34 people in Spain during an operation against the international criminal organization known as “Black Axe,” Europol announced. 

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.