Meta Confirms Zero-Click WhatsApp Spyware Attack Targeting 90 Journalists, Activists - Related to zero-click, healthcare, patients, whatsapp, $300

KuCoin to pay nearly $300 million in penalties after guilty plea

KuCoin's operator, PEKEN Global Limited, pleaded guilty to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business and agreed to pay $297 million in penalties to settle charges in the [website].

The cryptocurrency exchange was charged in March 2024 for its failure to implement the required anti-money laundering (AML) requirements, allowing cybercriminals to use the platform to launder their proceeds.

.S. Department of Justice, the platform did not abide by the applicable legal obligations to implement a "know your customer" (KYC) system and verify user identities.

To make matters worse, KuCoin allegedly also concealed the fact that this was a mandatory requirement as per [website] laws, creating a false idea to end-customers that they were exempt.

This deception continued until at least July 2023, with KuCoin only adding a KYC system in August 2023, which impacted both new and existing clients.

However, existing consumers with balances on the platform were allowed to withdraw their money without being required to go through the KYC process.

"For years, KuCoin avoided implementing required anti-money laundering policies designed to identify criminal actors and prevent illicit transactions," stated [website] Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon in the latest [website] DoJ announcement.

"As a result, KuCoin was used to facilitate billions of dollars' worth of suspicious transactions and to transmit potentially criminal proceeds, including proceeds from darknet markets and malware, ransomware, and fraud schemes."

Earlier this week, KuCoin's owner and operator pled guilty today to one count of operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business, agreeing to pay $297 million to settle the charges.

Additionally, KuCoin will exit the [website] market for the next two years, and its founders, Chun Gan, a/k/a "Michael," and Ke Tang, a/k/a "Eric," will be removed from KuCoin's management and core operations team.

KuCoin, one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, has been active in the [website] since 2017, serving approximately 1,500,000 registered customers in the country.

The platform's earnings from 2017 until 2024, the time of the indictment, in the [website], are estimated to be $[website] million, so the final penalty was based on this amount, plus a criminal fine of $[website] million.

As part of the same agreement, Gan and Tang will forfeit $2,700,000, which they received from KuCoin's operations in the [website].

In an effort to blend in and make their malicious traffic tougher to block, hosting firms catering to cybercriminals in China and Russia increasingly ......

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is warning that Contec CMS8000 devices, a widely used healthcare patient monitoring dev......

Tata Technologies Ltd. had to suspend some of its IT services following a ransomware attack that impacted the organization network.

US healthcare provider data breach impacts 1 million patients

Community Health Center (CHC), a leading Connecticut healthcare provider, is notifying over 1 million patients of a data breach that impacted their personal and health data.

The non-profit organization provides primary medical, dental, and mental health services to more than 145,000 active patients.

CHC noted in a Thursday filing with Maine's attorney general that unknown attackers gained access to its network in mid-October 2024, a breach discovered more than two months later, on January 2, 2025.

While the threat actors stole files containing patients' personal and health information belonging to 1,060,936 individuals, the healthcare organization says they didn't encrypt any compromised systems and that the security breach didn't impact its operations.

Investigators hired to assess the incident's impact and secure CHC's systems found that "a skilled criminal hacker" was behind the attack.

"Fortunately, the criminal hacker did not delete or lock any of our data, and the criminal's activity did not affect our daily operations. We believe we stopped the criminal hacker's access within hours, and that there is no current threat to our systems," CHC added.

Depending on the affected patient, the attackers stole a combination of:

personal (names, dates of birth, addresses, phone numbers, emails, Social Security numbers) or.

health information (medical diagnoses, treatment details, test results, and health insurance.

A CHC spokesperson was not immediately available when BleepingComputer reached out.

While CHC stated the hackers didn't encrypt any of its systems, more ransomware operations have switched tactics to become data theft extortion groups in recent years.

For instance, the BianLian ransomware gang gradually abandoned file encryption after Avast released a free decryptor in January 2023. A joint advisory issued by CISA, the FBI, and the Australian Cyber Security Centre also confirmed this in November 2024.

This week, the New York Blood Center (NYBC), one of the world's largest independent blood collection and distribution organizations, also disclosed that a Sunday ransomware attack forced it to reschedule some appointments.

Over the weekend, UnitedHealth also revealed that roughly 190 million Americans had their personal and healthcare data stolen in last year's Change Healthcare ransomware attack, nearly doubling the previous figure of 100 million disclosed in October.

In response to this surge of massive healthcare security breaches, the [website] Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed updates to HIPAA (short for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) in late December to secure patients' health data.

Italy's data protection watchdog has blocked Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek's service within the country, citing a lack of informa......

Over 57 distinct threat actors with ties to China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia have been observed using artificial intelligence (AI) technology powe......

​The New York Blood Center (NYBC), one of the world's largest independent blood collection and distribution organizations, says a Sunday ransomware at......

Meta Confirms Zero-Click WhatsApp Spyware Attack Targeting 90 Journalists, Activists

Meta-owned WhatsApp on Friday showcased it disrupted a campaign that involved the use of spyware to target journalists and civil society members.

The campaign, which targeted around 90 members, involved the use of spyware from an Israeli enterprise known as Paragon Solutions. The attackers were neutralized in December 2024.

In a statement to The Guardian, the encrypted messaging app noted it has reached out to affected customers, stating it had "high confidence" that the customers were targeted and "possibly compromised." It's currently not known who is behind the campaign and for how long it took place.

The enterprise noted the targets were spread across over two dozen countries, including several in Europe, adding it notified the affected parties and provided them information on how to protect themselves.

"This is the latest example of why spyware companies must be held accountable for their unlawful actions," a WhatsApp spokesperson told The Hacker News. "WhatsApp will continue to protect peoples' ability to communicate privately."

The enterprise also revealed that it had sent Paragon a "cease and desist" letter and that it was considering other options. The development marks the first time the enterprise has been linked to cases where its technology has been misused.

Like NSO Group, Paragon is the maker of surveillance software called Graphite that's offered to government clients in order to combat digital threats. It was acquired by a [website] investment group AE Industrial Partners in December in a deal worth $500 million.

On its barebones website, the business asserts it provides clients with "ethically based tools" to "disrupt intractable threats," as well as offer "cyber and forensic capabilities to locate and analyze digital data."

In late 2022, it came to light that Graphite was used by the [website] Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for counternarcotics operations. Last year, the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) called on the Department of Homeland Security to release details about its $2 million contract with Paragon.

News of the campaign comes weeks after a judge in California ruled in WhatsApp's favor in a landmark case against NSO Group for using its infrastructure to deliver the Pegasus spyware to 1,400 devices in May 2019.

Meta's disclosure also coincided with the arrest of former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro over allegations that he sanctioned the use of Pegasus spyware to surveil opposition leaders and oversaw cases where the technology was used.

(The story was updated after publication to include a statement from Meta/WhatsApp.).

​Microsoft says it improved the contrast of text rendered in all Chromium-based web browsers on Windows, making it more readable on some displays.

The [website] Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have issued alerts about the presence of h......

​The New York Blood Center (NYBC), one of the world's largest independent blood collection and distribution organizations, says a Sunday ransomware at......