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MoneyGram remittance service to reimburse customers for $115 million stolen
The site turned a blind eye to numerous cases of transfer fraud.The U.S. authorities ordered MoneyGram to pay almost 40,000 victims of fraud using the money transfer service compensation in the amount of $115 million.Users will receive their share of the funds that MoneyGram confiscated in 2018 under a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA). This action was led by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the US Department of Justice (DoJ).According to court documents, the MoneyGram service violated 2 previous agreements - the FTC from 2012 and the Ministry of Justice from 2015 - in...
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Sinbad mixer has already helped North Korea launder tens of millions of dollars
The new platform bypasses US sanctions and has already been used to launder the biggest robberies.According to blockchain analysis firm Elliptic, the U.S.-blocked cryptocurrency mixer Blender was relaunched under a different name to avoid U.S. sanctions and was subsequently used by North Korean hackers to launder stolen cryptocurrencies.Elliptic said crypto mixer Blender, which was sanctioned by the US after helping Pyongyang launder the proceeds of the Axie Infinity attack, has been renamed Sinbad. After launching in October 2022, Sinbad was first used to launder funds from the $100 million Horizon heist and has since laundered...
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US spyware developer to pay over $400,000 for illegal user tracking
The New York Attorney General's Office has fined $410,000 for spyware developer Patrick Hinchey, who illegally promoted his surveillance tools with the help of 16 companies.Prosecutors also ordered Patrick Hinchey to change the way he markets his products and inform device owners that their phones are being secretly tracked using one of his many apps - Auto Forward, Easy Spy, DDI Utilities, Highster Mobile, PhoneSpector, Surepoint, and TurboSpy.Hinchey provides client companies with his spyware, which allows you to track other people's phones without the knowledge of users. In some cases, they are also used to...
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Julius “Zeekill” Kivimäki, former Lizard Squad hacker, arrested in France
Julius Kivimäki, also known by the nickname "Zeekill", is a Finnish member of the Lizard Squad. In 2015, when Kivimäki was just 17 years old, he was convicted on more than 50,000 counts of computer crimes. The other day he was arrested again while he was in France.The Finnish police confirmed the arrest on 3 February in a press release. It states that the suspect is being held by the French authorities while Finland "initiates measures to extradite the suspect to Finland."The Finnish Police Service has issued a European arrest warrant for Kivimäki, now known...
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Fentanyl
Popularly known as the "China white", fentanyl is one of the most feared drugs in the world. Its derivatives alpha-Methylfentanyl and Trimethylfentanyl are also on the list of the most dangerous substances. Fentanyl has an analgesic property that is six thousand times superior to that of morphine.Surgeons use fentanyl in critical situations, during operations on the brain. Only doctors of the highest rank in the special conditions of the intensive care center have the right to use fentanyl in their practice, since the likelihood of severe complications is high. Instantaneous respiratory arrest during surgery and...
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Mustang Panda uses interesting bait in its new malware campaign
In 2019, the Chinese hacker group Mustang Panda targeted government and public organizations in Asia and Europe. The cybercriminals carried out long-term cyberespionage campaigns in line with the strategic interests of the Chinese government.Until November 2022, the group used malicious archive files in its attacks, but now it uses a different method. According to a report from EclecticIQ, Mustang Panda is currently actively using ".iso" optical disc files containing malicious ".lnk" shortcut files. The labels are disguised as Microsoft Office Word documents, so it is not always possible for victims to understand what is wrong...
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New Linux version of Royal Ransomware targets ESXi Virtual Machines
Cybersecurity researcher Will Thomas of the Equinix Threat Intelligence Center (ETAC) has discovered that the Royal Ransomware has added Linux device encryption support to its latest malware variants that target VMware ESXi virtual machines.The new variant of Royal Ransomware is executed via the command line and supports several flags that will give the operator partial control over the encryption process:-stopvm - stops all running virtual machines so that they can be encrypted;-vmonly - encrypt only virtual machines;-fork - unknown;-logs - unknown;-id - ID of 32 characters.When encrypting files, the ransomware will add the ".royal_u" extension...
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Killnet group accused of violating NATO humanitarian mission
The victims of the Turkish-Syrian earthquake were almost left without help due to a network failure.Earlier today, we reported that several NATO websites, including the Special Operations Forces Headquarters portal, were under attack, believed to have been carried out by the hacker group Killnet.The aforementioned website was down for only a couple of hours, but this incident is now linked to the loss of communication with one of the NATO-controlled aircraft flying to Turkey to deliver humanitarian aid. The pilot was reportedly alerted to disruptions in the Aviation Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS), which...
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Chinese hackers attacked dozens of Russian IT companies
So is said by Group-IB.In June 2022, a malicious mailing was detected that targeted several dozen Russian companies, including those operating in the IT sector.According to Group-IB, these attacks were carried out by the Chinese group Tonto Team, which is also called HeartBeat and Karma Panda. They used malicious Microsoft Office documents created with the Royal Road Weaponizer, which Group-IB said was already linked to Chinese pro-state groups. Also during the investigation, the Bisonal.DoubleT backdoor, developed by Tonto Team, was discovered.The Tonto Team grouping has been known since 2009 and is associated with attacks on...
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Hawaii prepares for legalization this year
A press conference of government officials was held in Hawaii. The meeting was organized at the initiative of Hawaiian Rep. Jeanné Kapela to announce her legislation, which will address criminal justice reform and other important issues related to cannabis.All speakers at the press conference were unanimous in their opinion that state policy is outdated, and criminal prosecution of people who use cannabis causes immeasurable harm to the community - both to the convicted person and to the state as a whole.For example, Nikos Leverenz of the Hawaiian Drug Policy Forum called the upcoming cannabis law...