Could the arrests in the Stop and Shop data breach indicate a tie to Armenian Mobsters?

( Photo courtesy of Stop & Shop and the Rhode Island Police)Stop & Shop has recently been in the news because of a data breach, involving compromised debit and credit card information. The data breach was traced to PIN pads that had been mysteriously replaced.To read my original post on the Stop & Shop data-breach, link here.Monday night,...

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MyTruston, a privacy friendly identity theft prevention/recovery service based on trust

Tom Fragala, CEO of MyTruston (Identity Theft Prevention and Recovery Services) has created a service for identity theft victims, where they don't have to put all their personal information (which was used to steal money) on another database.This makes a lot of sense, when databases seem to be compromised, weekly. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has...

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FBI issues vishing alert

Vishing is a term used when people are tricked into giving up their personal details to criminals over the telephone.Many believe it is being enabled by VoIP technology, which has made calling long distance cheap.The FBI is reporting:It’s one of the latest breakthroughs in telecommunications—Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, which enables telephone calls over the web.And guess who’s hopping on the VoIP bandwagon along with millions of legitimate customers? Criminals, that’s who. They’re using the technology to hijack identities and steal money....

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Monster lure used to install malicious code

Spoofed (spam) e-mails, claiming to be from Monster (the popular job site) are being used as a lure to install malware on computers.The good people at Websense are reporting:Websense® Security Labs™ has discovered emails that attempt to lure users to click on a link in order to upgrade their system security. The emails, which are spoofed from Monster, are written in HTML and claim that Monster systems have been upgraded and that users need to download a certified utility to be able to use Monster. The domain name that the emails point to are using...

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Tax Refund Loans attract fraudsters

There are a lot of people trying to scam tax preparers and the government.Part of the problem is that W-2 forms are easily purchased at just about any Office Supply store and forged.KGO, San Francisco (Alan Wong) reports:The latest trend in tax fraud has made its way to the Bay Area and it could be costing the federal government millions.People are being enticed to cheat Uncle Sam and then split the take. The goal is to get these tax preparers to give them a loan (refund anticipation type) and walk out with about $6,000 - $8,000 in cash.Fraudsters...

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Counterfeit Check (Cheque) Scams are all over the Internet

The amount of counterfeit checks (cheques) being circulated via various Internet scams, and even the classifieds (paper media) is on the rise.A new trend is also being seen, where people are getting these counterfeits items in the mail (unsolicited). Some of us, who watch this closely, suspect they are data mining information off job sites, like Monster.com and Craigs List.Last April, I did a post about a Better Business Bureau (BBB) employee, who got a lot of negative attention after she accepted a job to cash bogus intruments and send the money...

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Another sad statistic, the Stop and Shop data breach

Last weekend, Stop and Shop (Quincy, MA) reported a data-breach at two of their stores in Rhode Island. After an initial investigation, they tracked the theft to two pin-pads.Consumer Affairs has the most informative story (my opinion) on this current breach. They are reporting that with the assistance of the Secret Service, four more compromised pin-pads have been identified (all in the Rhode Island area).Martin H. Bosworth makes an interesting point in his article that the United States hasn't been as proactive as our European friends in instituting...

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Buying drugs on the Internet could be hazardous to your health

I normally write about Internet fraud, which is enabled (a lot) by spam e-mails attacking our in-boxes on a daily basis.A lot of these spam e-mails are trying to sell drugs.The FDA is now warning all of us that buying these drugs from questionable sources could be hazardous to your health.This makes this issue more serious than losing a little money!From their press release on the matter:The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has become aware that a number of Americans who placed orders for specific drug products over the Internet (Ambien, Xanax,...

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Just how many computer records have been compromised?

Just yesterday, I ranted about statistics and how (for the right amount of money) some of them are manipulated to lead people to a particular conclusion.To counter some recent statistical analysis, I used the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse's, "chronology of data-breaches." Please note, they have a disclaimer on this page clearly saying that their figures are merely an estimate.This morning, I was reading the "Chronicles of Dissent," which is a new site (off-shoot of PogowasRight.org) and I saw (what I consider) a very interesting post.100 million...

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Why don't all the identity theft statistics say the same thing?

Consumer Affairs wrote an interesting article about all the recently released identity theft surveys.Martin H. Bosworth reports:The financial services industry, hoping to befuddle the new Congress, has been busily laying down a smokescreen claiming that identity theft is on the wane.But the Federal Trade Commission's latest compilation of consumer complaints and a survey by the National Crime Prevention Council should do much to clear the air.Martin's article, here.Who should we believe, the government, or the financial services industry?The civil...

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Is Julie Amero (in reality) another victim of Internet crime?

Internet crime is a growing problem. Every week, we seem to read of large scale data breaches, and spam is filling up our inboxes, despite the spam filters designed to stop it.The spam getting past these filters is often riddled with deceptive lures (links) to all sorts of porn sites. In turn, these sites often infect machines that aren't properly protected with adware, spyware, malware and even crimeware.So far as properly protecting our machines, this can be a chore, also. It requires frequent updates, and new exploits are discovered all the...

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Valentine's Day Virus moving quickly across the Internet

Sophos is reporting a nasty virus, which if downloaded, sends more e-mail to everyone in your address book.They suspect that the worm opens a gateway, which will allow your computer to be turned into a zombie and be used to send more spam e-mails.Here is a portion of the alert from Sophos:Experts at SophosLabs™, Sophos's global network of virus, spyware and spam analysis centers, have warned of a widespread worm posing as a St Valentine's Day greeting which is spreading fast across the internetThe W32/Dref-AB worm has been deliberately spread via...

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Spoofed (counterfeit) BBB e-mails contains virus

If you get an e-mail from the Better Business Bureau stating you have received complaints don't click on the link to view them.Annys Shinn (Washington Post) is reporting:The Better Business Bureau network was the target of a "spoofing" scam yesterday in which thousands of businesses in the United States and Canada received e-mails encouraging them to download what is thought to be a computer virus.The e-mails, using the name of the 95-year-old network of nonprofit groups that looks into consumer complaints, told businesses that they were the subject...

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Don't be lured with promises of something too good to be true when filing your taxes

Tax season brings with it all kinds of fraud. A lot of immoral sorts try to get someone to fall for something that's too good to be true. They get away with it because people are afraid of what they might owe, or they take advantage of what I call the "greed factor."One thing is certain, if you fall for their promises, you're going to be left holding the bag. This means financial hardship (at a minimum) and could mean incarceration (jail).I firmly believe that education is the best weapon against fraud. And the best places to educate yourself about...

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Trooper discovers a lot of counterfeit instruments used to commit identity theft/financial fraud

I recently did two posts:Is tracking fraudulent refund information effective and could it be putting people at risk of becoming an identity theft victim? Paper weapons (counterfeit documents) enable more serious crimes than illegal immigration and identity theft I wrote both of these to show how easy criminals seem to be getting around existing systems designed to stop them.Here is a rather obscure story that illustrates how widespread counterfeit identification and the use of other people's identities to commit crime might be.Santiago Esparza...

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Information Week exposes the Internet Underworld

With the TJX data breach fresh in the news, Larry Greenemeier and J. Nicholas Hoover (Information Week) have written one of the most informative articles to date on the hacker underworld.They are warning us that:Hacking isn't a kid's game anymore. It's big business. Online black markets are flush with stolen credit card data, driver's license numbers, and malware, the programs that let hackers exploit the security weaknesses of commercial software. Cybercriminals have become an organized bunch; they use peer-to-peer payment systems just like they're...

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Blaming FEMA for the fraud in Katrina isn't going to solve the problem

There is no doubt about it - the Katrina and Rita debacle - was NOT a shining moment in our nation's history. Fifteen months later as New Orleans prepares to celebrate "Fat Tuesday" (Mardi Gras), more allegations of fraud and mismanagement are coming to light.Two reporters (Michelle Roberts and Frank Bass) of the AP wrote an interesting article about how FEMA now wants $300 million back in claims paid for households that didn't exist, according to official pre-hurricane census figures.Even more interesting is that they did their own analysis using...

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Is tracking fraudulent refund information effective and could it be putting people at risk of becoming an identity theft victim?

The retail industry loses billions of dollars a year to fraudulent refunds.Fraudulent refunds occur when retail crooks (shoplifters, bad check writers and credit card fraudsters) bring in stolen merchandise to convert into cash. To protect themselves, merchants have developed refund policies, which require that personal information be maintained in a database to identify retail crooks.I believe the merchants, who came up with this idea, did so with honorable intentions. But is it possible that these systems are easily defeated and themselves might...

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