The Wire

Independent Australian bookstores and authors are struggling to stock shelves six weeks after a cyber attack hit a major book distributor, according to ABC business (AU) reporting on Thursday.

Hachette Australia said unauthorised activity occurred on July 18 within the computer systems of its distribution subsidiary, Alliance Distribution Services.

Singapore police raided the local office of iron ore trader Radiant World last week and questioned employees as part of an investigation into allegedly falsified transaction documents, according to people familiar with the matter.

Several major commodity traders have cut ties with the company amid concerns that it provided invalid invoices and documents to banks, Bloomberg reports.

A spokesperson for the Singapore police said investigations were ongoing and further details were not available.

– With Bloomberg The Straits Times reports.

Federal prosecutors in Washington have filed civil forfeiture complaints against more than $25 million in cryptocurrency linked to five fraud networks operating across the US and Canada.

Investigators traced the funds through laundering operations tied to IP addresses in China, Malaysia and Cambodia, according to the US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia.

The filings push total recoveries under the Scam Center Strike Force past $800 million, US Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro said in a statement, CoinMarketCap reports.

Thailand's Cabinet on Aug 25 approved amendments to four securities and capital markets laws designed to accelerate investigations into insider trading, stock manipulation and corporate fraud, the Securities and Exchange Commission said.

Under the changes, SEC officials would work directly with police on serious market offences. Criminal investigations currently take more than two years due to limited resources and expertise, said SEC secretary-general Pornanong Budsaratragoon. The amendments would also tighten oversight of auditors and financial advisers. Parliament approval is expected, with the measures set to take effect in 2027.

The overhaul follows accounting scandals at cable maker Stark, which defaulted on nearly 40 billion baht of liabilities in 2023, and renewable-energy company Energy Absolute, which faced fraud allegations in 2024. "Investors have demanded much stricter enforcement against wrongdoers to restore their confidence," Pornanong said, The Straits Times reports.

Liquor and Gaming NSW is investigating the board of Seven Hills RSL for allowing general manager Joseph Bayssari to remain in his position after he admitted to receiving corrupt payments. The state gaming regulator is also looking into his continued employment three weeks after the Independent Liquor and Gaming Authority fined him $11,000 and banned him from holding office for five years.

Bayssari received more than $280,000 in undisclosed weekly payments from a club contractor over 4.5 years, along with free food, forgiven rent, gift cards and home renovations, according to ILGA findings. The authority found he also awarded catering contracts to his son's company without a transparent tender process and accepted $35,000 in cash without a legitimate explanation.

Seven Hills RSL said ILGA had determined an appropriate sanction after much deliberation and that Bayssari's present employment complies with the authority's orders. "In deference to the authority's decision, we have no further comment to make at this time," the club said.

– The Age

New Zealand's Inland Revenue has identified and stopped nearly 3000 fraudulent amended tax returns in a coordinated scheme spread through social media and workplace networks, RNZ reports.

Authorities stopped $4.015 million in bogus claims while $151,787 in refunds had already been paid out before new measures were introduced, Inland Revenue spokesperson Sarah Bourke said on Tuesday. One individual is already under an instalment arrangement to repay funds, while participants face penalties including a 150 percent evasion shortfall penalty and possible prosecution, RNZ business (NZ) reports.

Japan's services producer price index rose 3.6% in July from a year earlier, according to data released on Wednesday.

The increase followed a revised 3.4% gain in June, Bank of Japan data showed, reinforcing expectations for a near-term interest rate hike, Channel NewsAsia business reports.

Brazil's data protection agency fined TikTok nearly $30 million for failing to implement child safety measures, NST Online reports.

The platform committed to a compliance plan including stricter privacy settings and parental supervision for users under 16, according to the report.

Australia's scam prevention framework requires victims to prove an institution failed to meet its anti-fraud obligations in order to secure reimbursement, according to fraud expert Ken Palla.

Palla, a retired director at MUFG Union Bank, said that while clear-cut controls like confirmation of payee are easy to measure, many of the roughly 30 required controls are harder to define when a scammer manipulates a customer into authorizing a transaction, BankInfoSecurity reports.

Instant coffee prices at major supermarkets have risen past $50 per jar as a result of tightening global supply, poor weather in producing regions and a weaker New Zealand dollar, economists and supermarkets say. New World is advertising a 400g jar of Moccona classic medium roast for $53.99, while Woolworths lists it for $42.99 on special, according to RNZ business.

Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod said global coffee prices are high due to poor weather in major producing regions including Vietnam and Brazil, compounded by recent increases in global fuel costs. BNZ chief economist Mike Jones said a classic global supply shock is at the root of the increase, noting the global price for coffee has roughly doubled over the past four years, according to RNZ business.

Stats NZ data shows the average price of 100g of instant coffee rose from $6.25 in July 2019 to $8.02 in July of this year, after dipping to $5.40 in late 2020. Woolworths said tightening global supply, market volatility and a weaker New Zealand dollar influenced the pricing, according to RNZ business, RNZ business (NZ) reports.

Hackers are attempting to exploit two critical authentication bypass vulnerabilities in the miniOrange SAML 2.0 Single Sign On plugin for WordPress, BleepingComputer reports.

The flaws, tracked as CVE-2026-61979 and CVE-2026-15981, can be chained together to forge SAML responses and log in as administrators, according to security firm Patchstack.

The United States sanctioned several Iranian nationals on Monday for cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, as the United Kingdom disclosed a recent cyber intrusion on a small power plant.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the measures, with the Treasury Department stating that the men are part of a hacking operation housed within Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, according to The Record.

Visa is working with Nium to explore seven-day stablecoin settlement through Singapore's BLOOM initiative, Fintech News Singapore reports.

The initiative, led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, tests faster cross-border payments. Payment settlements typically take place on business days, but the pilot will explore settlement on weekends and public holidays using regulated stablecoins backed by major currencies including the US dollar and euro.

"Through BLOOM and our pilot with Nium in Singapore, we are exploring how stablecoins can complement existing payment infrastructure," said Adeline Kim, Visa's Group Country Manager for Regional Southeast Asia.

– With Fintech News Singapore

Australian insurers are increasingly using unconventional data sources including web browsing activity, social media footprints and third-party analytics to calculate premiums, a practice that raises concerns about indirect discrimination and the re-identification of supposedly anonymised information, according to analysis in The Conversation.

Insurers have long been allowed to charge different prices based on risk assessments, within limits set by federal anti-discrimination law. However, three federal acts – covering age, disability and sex – exempt insurers from discrimination protections if they rely on "actuarial or statistical data on which it is reasonable to rely". The Human Rights Commission and Actuaries Institute warn this may not justify using data that is outdated, incomplete, based on small samples or not directly applicable to individual cases.

A 2024 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission report warned that even de-identified data could be re-identified when combined with other information, and that consumers may be targeted based on shared traits – a practice called "affinity profiling".

Orbit Resources has begun drilling at its Lewis Ponds project in New South Wales, targeting expansion of a 1.7-million-ounce gold equivalent resource after recent assays identified mineralisation outside the current deposit. The company is testing a concealed sulphide zone and the Quarry Lode, which sits beyond the resource estimate outlined in a February scoping study.

A recent hole intersected 27 metres grading 0.97 grams per tonne gold equivalent at Quarry Lode, including a 10-metre section at 1.44g/t. "The results demonstrate the potential for this area to contribute additional mineralisation and support future mining studies aimed at evaluating open pit expansion opportunities," managing director Jeneta Owens said. The company also plans surveys at the Cousin Jack prospect, where drilling in June returned two broad sulphide zones including a 1.7-metre intercept grading 13.1 per cent zinc equivalent, Murray Ward reports for SMH business (AU).

Laboratory testing of seven fluffy toys and keyrings sold at NSW market stalls and by online retailers found all contained real animal fur despite some being marketed as fake, ABC Investigations reports. Testing identified rabbit, fox and dog fur — dog hair imports have been banned in Australia since 2004. One keyring sold online for $2.61 as "soft fake fur" contained material consistent with dog hair.

The products, some dyed to obscure their origin, were not covered by mandatory labelling laws under Australian Consumer Law. Four Paws, an animal welfare organisation, commissioned UK-based lab Microtex Analysis to conduct the microscopy testing. "Consumers have a right to know what they're buying, and right now our laws and regulations are letting consumers down," said Louise Ward, programs lead for Four Paws.

Some products carried tags marked "I [heart] Ugg Australia" despite not being made by the company. Ugg Australia CEO Lena Fishman said offshore goods were "trading on that name" and often resold internationally as Australian-made. NSW Fair Trading said it was assessing the information to determine what action to take, ABC business (AU) reports.

ToxicPanda Android malware has evolved to request VPN permissions that allow it to intercept and block communications from Google Play and Google Play Services, security firm Zimperium says. The updated malware, version 2.0, now targets 349 banking, financial and cryptocurrency applications across 16 countries and supports 167 remote commands.

The malware is distributed through Amazon AWS-hosted buckets and uses invisible overlays to capture user inputs on targeted apps, including phishing screens and fake system updates to hide its activity. It also abuses the Android Debug Bridge to gain shell-level access to infected devices, bypassing security protections on devices from Samsung, Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo and Huawei.

Zimperium says the malware uses the Accessibility Services permission to enable Developer Options and Wireless Debugging, then extracts the ADB pairing code to execute high-privilege commands that bypass Android's standard permission prompts and background restrictions. A PIN-harvesting module targets 140 financial and cryptocurrency apps with a dynamically updated target list, Bill Toulas reports for BleepingComputer.

Australia's financial crimes watchdog Austrac has identified potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in suspected fraudulent mortgages enabled by AI-generated fake payslips and forged company documents, after a joint investigation with major banks called Operation Claw.

The investigation, drawing on data from 10 major banks through the Fintel Alliance, found that criminals are using artificial intelligence to create counterfeit documents faster than lenders can detect them. The suspected fraud was mostly linked to houses in Sydney. "The scale of this activity should be a wake-up call for every lender," said Austrac CEO Brendan Thomas. "The same warning signs were found across banks that together cover the vast majority of Australia's mortgage market."

While the suspected fraudulent loans represent a small share of Australia's $2.6 trillion mortgage market, analysts say the findings show criminals have evolved faster than banks in deploying technology. Austrac did not find evidence of widespread money laundering, and no major fines are currently in play, Clancy Yeates reports for SMH business (AU).

Threat actors are embedding malicious commands in FTP server greeting messages to deliver two previously undocumented remote access trojans named E4del and PINHOLE, security researchers at SOCRadar report. The technique, first observed in July, uses shortcut files (.LNK) to retrieve PowerShell scripts hidden in FTP banners, likely deployed through phishing attacks.

E4del is a Node.js-based RAT packaged as a fake Discord application that can run commands, capture screenshots and stream desktops. PINHOLE uses a smaller footprint and retrieves its configuration from Pinterest pins and SurveyMonkey questions, supporting 14 commands including file theft and credential stealing. SOCRadar says the technique remains in use as of August, though FTP connections to unknown servers are more easily detected than traditional web-based dead-drop resolvers like X or GitHub, Bill Toulas reports for BleepingComputer.