GRC Report Staff

The European Commission has hit two of the world’s biggest tech companies, Apple and Meta, with massive fines for failing to comply with key obligations under the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a regulation designed to level the playing field in Europe’s digital landscape. Apple has been fined €500 million, while Meta faces a €200 million penalty, as the Commission accuses them of undermining fair competition and consumer choice in different ways.

In separate settlements with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), both J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and SpeedRoute LLC have agreed to pay fines for violations of FINRA rules and federal securities regulations. These settlements address deficiencies in supervisory systems, failure to adhere to reporting requirements, and lapses in financial and risk management controls.

The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) imposed a series of regulatory measures on AKBANK AG following a special inspection of the institution’s business operations. BaFin’s findings revealed significant shortcomings across several critical areas, including anti-money laundering practices, internal audits, and business transaction documentation. The financial regulator has mandated that the bank address these issues promptly, and has levied a total of €432,500 in administrative fines.

4chan, the notorious image board known for its controversial and often extreme content, was hacked, leading to significant disruptions across the platform. At the time of writing, users reported that the site was down intermittently, with the website failing to load for hours. Social media flooded with comments from users, many expressing their frustration as they struggled to access the site.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has secured a monumental win in its second monopolization case against Google. A U.S. District Court ruling in the Eastern District of Virginia confirmed that Google’s stranglehold on the digital advertising market violated antitrust laws, a major victory in the ongoing struggle to rein in Big Tech.

‍The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has taken a stance against accessiBe, approving a final consent order that slaps the company with a $1 million fine. This comes after accusations that accessiBe misled consumers with inflated claims about its accessibility tool, the accessWidget, which the company marketed as a one-stop solution for making websites fully compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has recently issued a warning to organizations regarding a potential unauthorized access incident involving a legacy Oracle cloud environment. While the full scope of the breach remains somewhat unclear at this time, CISA has expressed concern about the exposure of sensitive credential materials, such as usernames, passwords, authentication tokens, and encryption keys. If these credentials are compromised, the risks to organizations could be significant, especially if they are reused across multiple systems or embedded in code and automation tools.