A week of conferences and product announcements with intergovernmental activity against cyber criminals yielding good results. The NCA and Europol both announced details (see below), of activity to disrupt criminal networks and arrests from those activities.
Enterprise Times published a podcast with Lars Rossen, SVO and Chief Architect of OpenText. Rossen talked about the latest release of Titanium X and how that would continue to make data more secure.
Pinecone has integrated inference capabilities into its vector database. This, it says, will create AI applications faster and be up to 48% more accurate. The company is achieving this by adding several new technologies to its database solution, which it claims will define a new standard for AI-powered solutions.
Appian Europe 2024 took place in London. At the conference, the company announced release 24.4 of its platform. It contains a number of boosts to AI and security.
Enterprise Times also published a podcast with Malcolm Ross, Senior Vice President of Product Strategy at Appian. It covers some of the features in release 24.4 and looks at the security and AI improvements in more detail.
Dragos
Dragos Inc. and Carahsoft Technology Corp announced a strategic partnership. It will see the two companies deliver industrial cybersecurity solutions to the public sector. Under the agreement, Carahsoft will serve as Dragos’ Master Government Aggregator. It makes the company’s platform and OT-specific Dragos WorldView cyber threat intelligence available to the public sector through Carahsoft’s reseller partners.
Robert M. Lee, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Dragos, Inc said, “This collaboration will simplify the ability of the public sector to procure the state-of-the-art technologies and solutions they need from the private sector as we all work towards the common goal of comprehensive industrial cybersecurity.”
Europol
A joint investigation team (JIT) involving French and Dutch authorities has taken down another sophisticated encrypted messaging service, MATRIX. For three months, authorities were able to monitor the messages from possible criminals, which will now be used to support other investigations.
During a coordinated operation supported by Eurojust and Europol, the messaging service was taken down by Dutch and French authorities and follow-up actions were executed by their Italian, Lithuanian and Spanish counterparts.
Europol has supported the dismantling of a sophisticated criminal network responsible for facilitating large-scale online fraud.
The operation was led by the Hanover Police Department (Polizeidirektion Hannover) and the Verden Public Prosecutor’s Office (Staatsanwaltschaft Verden) in Germany. It was supported by law enforcement authorities across Europe. Over 50 servers were seized, significant digital evidence was secured, and two key suspects were placed in pretrial detention.
FBI
Michael Okorie, a money launderer from Pennsylvania, has been sentenced for his role in an international money laundering conspiracy. He received 108 months in prison after being convicted of wire fraud and money laundering.
Okorie helped launder hundreds of thousands of dollars in fraud proceeds through two front companies: TMO Consulting LLC and Collective Intelligence Forensics LLC. Okorie and his co-conspirators would receive wire transfers from business email compromise, romance scams, and other frauds. The money would then be moved among bank accounts to conceal its origin.
National Crime Agency
Operation Destabilise has exposed and disrupted Russian money laundering networks supporting serious and organised crime worldwide. Operation Destabilise is being revealed today as the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announces sanctions against the Russian-speaking men and women at the head of these networks, as well as four businesses linked to TGR.
As well as enabling UK-based criminals, Smart and TGR used their global reach to launder money for transnational crime groups such as the Kinahans. The notorious family-run crime syndicate, responsible for trafficking drugs and firearms into the UK and around the world, were sanctioned by the US in 2022.
NCA-coordinated activity has so far led to 84 arrests, with many already serving prison sentences, as well as the seizure of over £20m in cash and cryptocurrency.
National Cyber Security Centre
Girls from schools across the country have been crowned winners in a UK-wide competition which put their cyber security skills to the test.
More than 14,500 girls across the UK registered to take part in the 2024/2025 CyberFirst Girls Competition. The competition is run by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), a part of GCHQ, with 13 teams claiming the top prize.
The CyberFirst Girls Competition is the UK’s flagship cyber security contest for schools. It opens annually to girls in Year 8 in England and Wales, S2 in Scotland, and Year 9 in Northern Ireland. Since it launched in 2017, around 85,000 girls have taken part.
NOYB
noyb is now approved as a so-called “Qualified Entity” to bring collective redress actions in courts throughout the European Union. Such action under Directive (EU) 2020/1828 can either be an “injunction” or a “redress” measure. “Injunctions” generally prohibit a company from engaging in illegal practices, including any GDPR violations.
“Redress” measures allow a European version of a “Class Action”, where thousands or millions of users could be represented by noyb and for example ask for non-material damages when their personal data was unlawfully processed. Contrary to US Class Actions, EU law requires that such actions are brought on a purely non-profit basis.
WSO2
WSO2, announced the addition of two executives: Jeff Paul and Isabelle Mauny. Together, they will play strategic roles in expanding global adoption of WSO2’s offerings via initiatives aimed at customer advocacy, education, and counsel.
- Jeff Paul joins WSO2 as senior vice president and global head of sales. He brings more than two decades of technology sales experience, including vice president roles at Red Hat, Intel and IBM.
- Isabelle Mauny rejoins WSO2 as vice president – chief developer advocate. She has 25-plus years of integration and API industry experience. She previously served as a 42Crunch co-founder and WSO2 vice president of product management.
“We are on a mission to empower enterprises to thrive in the digital economy—supported by our transformative, next-generation technologies and seasoned team of experts,” said Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana, WSO2 founder and CEO. “I’m excited to have Jeff and Isabelle join us in delivering on this commitment. Their deep knowledge of the digital opportunities and challenges facing organizations today will be invaluable in helping customers navigate their transformation journeys.”
