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Regulatory Watch News

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  Global public-private operation disrupts Sality botnet active for two decades

  Europol

  September 2, 2026

  An international operation supported by Europol has disrupted the Sality peer-to-peer (P2P) botnet, a long-running criminal infrastructure used to distribute malicious payloads to thousands of infected computers worldwide. The coordinated action, carried out on 31 August 2026 and led by the US authorities, targeted a botnet believed to have been operating for more than two decades. At its peak, the botnet gave its operator access to up to one million infected machines worldwide. To date, more than 11 million unique IP addresses have been linked to the infrastructure, which could be used to distribute malicious payloads to compromised devices.

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  OFSI imposes £4.7 million penalty on Citibank London Branch

  OFSI

  September 2, 2026

  OFSI imposes £4.7 million penalty on Citibank N.A. London Branch 

  The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) has imposed a £4,732,830.58 monetary penalty on Citibank, N.A., London Branch (CBNA London) for breaches of the Russia (Sanctions) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 and the Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions Regulations 2021. 

  The case involved 970 transactions worth approximately £19.7 million processed between 2022 and 2025. The majority of the breaches occurred between February and November 2022 following Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine and arose across the bank's operations, including payment processing, correspondent banking and account restrictions. 

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  MAS Consults on Legislative Amendments to Implement Stablecoin Regulatory Framework

  MAS

  September 2, 2026

  The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today published a consultation paper on proposed legislative amendments to the Payment Services Act 2019 (PS Act) to implement MAS’ regulatory framework for stablecoins^[1] in Singapore. The amendments will set out how stablecoin issuers may qualify to be MAS-regulated, and the safeguards they must meet to support value stability and user protection. The MAS Single-Currency Stablecoin (MAS-SCS) framework permits only issuers licensed under the framework to describe themselves as licensed MAS-regulated stablecoin issuers and represent their stablecoins as “MAS-regulated stablecoins”. This helps users distinguish well-regulated stablecoins from other cryptocurrencies that purport to be “stablecoins” but are not subject to MAS regulation to keep their value stable. Non-MAS-regulated stablecoins will be treated as Digital Payment Tokens (DPTs) and be subject to the same consumer protection safeguards that apply to DPTs^[2].