This week, the SEC announced that it has settled charges against the founder of EtherDelta for operating an unregistered national securities exchange. EtherDelta is a digital token trading platform for blockchain-based tokens commonly issued in ICOs. According to the SEC's order, EtherDelta's founder agreed to pay $300,000 in disgorgement plus $13,000 in prejudgment interest and a $75,000 penalty. This is the SEC's first enforcement action against a digital token trading platform for operating as an unregistered national securities exchange. The SEC has previously brought enforcement actions relating to unregistered broker-dealers and ICOs, some of which were traded on EtherDelta. The SEC's recently released annual enforcement report for the 2018 fiscal year cites three specific ICOs that defrauded investors of a combined $68 million.

In more SEC-related news, the crypto fund Blockvest LLC asked a federal court to require the SEC to submit admissible evidence before allowing the agency to block its ICO. Blockvest LLC argued that the SEC should be required to make more specific allegations and argued that evidence submitted in support of the SEC's application for a temporary restraining order is based on hearsay and thus inadmissible. On the state level, this week the Texas State Securities Board filed an emergency cease and desist order against Automated Web Services Mining (AWS Mining), an Australia-based cloud mining company, for selling unregistered crypto mining power contracts. According to the order, AWS Mining, along with its officers and partners, failed to register as dealers or agents for securities offerings and failed to register its contracts as securities.

A leading web analytics platform, StatCounter, was breached late last week through an external JavaScript tag. The service is used by more than 2 million other websites, including several government-related websites, to gather statistics on website visitors. This breach was unique because the hackers compromised StatCounter's external JavaScript tag, not StatCounter's website. The hackers used an external resource that touches millions of other sites just to steal bitcoin from one cryptocurrency exchange website. The attack demonstrates that well-maintained and protected websites are still susceptible to flaws in external resources that are under the control of third parties.

On the international front, regulators continue to put pressure on hackers. Late last week, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) of New Zealand blacklisted three new crypto-related websites – Crypto Gain, Russ Horn and Zend Trade. Meanwhile in Turkey, the Cybercrime Department of the Turkish National Police arrested 11 suspects for an alleged crypto hack that resulted in more than $80,000 in losses. In South Korea, intelligence officials have solved the first known case of cryptojacking in South Korea. Cryptojacking is a hacking method where the hacker secretly takes control of personal computers to mine cryptocurrency. While the four hackers collected only about $895 worth of virtual money, they will stand trial for infecting over 6,000 PCs during the course of their scheme.

On Monday, Cybersecurity experts at Japan Digital Design, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, announced the discovery of incriminating evidence against the hackers of Japanese crypto exchange Zaif. Back in September, Zaif lost roughly $60 million worth of crypto assets. The experts have provided all relevant information to the authorities. Also this week, Taiwan's legislature bolstered current cryptocurrency regulations with the passage of amendments to its existing AML and counterterrorism financing laws. The amendments give Taiwan's Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) the power to prohibit anonymous crypto transactions and to allow banking organizations to reject anonymous transactions and report suspicious ones to the FSC. These changes promote AML compliance and allow Taiwan to better align with international AML standards.

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