Japanese cop exposes confidential information on 6,000 people using P2P (file-sharing) software

Japanese police car picture courtesy of FlickrWe spend a lot of MONEY protecting computer systems and the information in them. Despite this, information is stolen or compromised from computers, pretty frequently.One reason for this is it only takes one person, with access to compromise a system and it's security.Recently, Japan Today, disclosed that...

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Scambusters predicts a lot of scammers will use the iPhone as a lure to steal money

IPhone picture, already up on eBay, at the time I posted this. It comes from an offer to become a iPhone distributor.Scambusters.org did a thoughtful article on the iPhone, and how, scammers will probably take advantage of the situation.After reading Audrey and Jim's well though-out predictions, I'm going to opt to share their sage advice.In Audrey...

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eBay sends high-tech care package to Romanian cops

Romanian fraudsters are known as Vlads. Vlad Tepes, a Romanian prince, was the inspiration for the original Dracula story. Interestingly enough, some Romanians consider him a a folk-hero, who drove away invading armies. Photo courtesy of Flickr.We hear a lot about Romanian organized crime being involved in fraud on auction sites. They are also well...

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RFID sniffing could be used by spies and criminals to commit all kinds of dastardly deeds!

Dark Reading wrote about a pretty scary flaw in RFID technology this week. Apparently, it's now possible for corporate spies and even organized retail criminal types to "sniff" RFID chips in a cargo container and use the information to commit a dastardly deed.Apparently, truckers will be particularly vulnerable to being "sniffed" (compromised). Of course, if you use a little imagination, sniffing RFID might put more than "truckers" at risk, also.From the story in Dark Reading:That means your competitor could use this information for intelligence...

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ID Theft Victim puts her Evil Twin back on probation in San Francisco

San Francisco's Hall of JusticeIdentity theft victims often get pretty frustrated after being accused of being deadbeats by collection agencies, or even being charged with a crime they didn't commit.Trying to seek justice seems to do little good, either. Law enforcement rarely has the resources to investigate individual cases, unless an identity thief...

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Collection agency and security company try to scam African government by stealing a corporate identity

Collection agencies don't make money by being nice people. Here is a story about how one of them wasn't very honest, either.I found this interesting story from a press release, courtesy of the FBI website:Late last month, we helped wrap up a case that took identity theft to a whole new level: one company trying to steal $23 million by pretending to be another company.It was made possible by a remarkable coincidence: two private security companies with nearly identical names. One of the firms, based in Michigan, was named Executive Outcome Inc....

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Data compromise in Ohio reveals the need to be more proactive in protecting information

The practice of sending computer back-up tapes containing a lot of personal/financial information home with interns went on for 2-3 years at a government office in Ohio, according to an article in the Columbus Dispatch.The Columbus Dispatch is reporting:In fact, it appears that the former technical manager for the Ohio Administrative Knowledge System didn't use regular state employees -- only two or three interns besides himself -- to take the data home on a rotating basis for safekeeping, said Ron Sylvester, a spokesman for the Ohio Department...

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FTC name impersonated to phish (steal information) from corporate executives

Spammers love to impersonate official agencies to hook their victims (phish). Recently, the attacks have become more specific targeting people by name, and or title. Here is a warning from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC):Consumers, including corporate and banking executives, appear to be targets of a bogus e-mail supposedly sent by the Federal Trade Commission but actually sent by third parties hoping to install spyware on computers. The bogus e-mail poses as an acknowledgment of a complaint filed by the recipient, and includes an attachment....

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How does a telemarketer get your unlisted number?

Ever get the idea that the credit bureaus enable a lot of problems, we now face with data-breaches, identity theft and the ever increasing loss of our personal privacy?One of the main ways they make money is by selling your personal and financial information.Read a good one on Pogo was Right (WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US):Terry Wyatt called his mortgage broker one morning about refinancing - and within hours began getting calls from other brokers and lenders he's never heard of.... So how did brokers and lenders as far away as New York and...

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Will counterfeit Visa Traveler Cheques be the latest bogus financial instrument spread in Internet Scams?

(Photo courtesy of Flickr)Counterfeit Visa Travelers Cheques -- so far seen in $500.00 denominations -- are starting to appear in different parts of the United States.In the past few years, counterfeit U.S. Postal Money Orders, MoneyGram Money Orders, and American Express Gift Cheques have all been circulated by Internet fraud activity.If history...

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Ohio data breach reveals how "not very secure" personal information is

I discovered a long time ago, it would be pretty hard to keep up with all the data-breaches. After all, they seem to happen with alarming frequency.The most recent blunder, enabled by a State of Ohio security procedure, illustrates how not very secure a lot of personal information is.Stephen Majors of the AP (courtesy of Forbes) is reporting:A 22-year-old...

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Counterfeit (knockoff) Colgate Toothpaste from South Africa is Toxic

When the FDA first reported toxic substances in off-brand toothpaste coming from China, it was bad enough. Now counterfeit Colgate toothpaste with the same toxic substance (DEG) is being imported from South Africa.Some of this counterfeit Colgate toxic toothpaste has been found in "dollar type" stores in the United States.Reuters is reporting:Colgate-Palmolive...

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FBI roasts a few Bot-Herders, which will free up to a million Zombies

Sick and tired of all the spam filling up your inbox, despite filtering technology that doesn't seem to work very well? If you are, Operation Bot Roast is a story that might catch your interest, or if you are like me, is chicken soup for the soul.Botnets are a primary cause for the ever increasing levels of spam. Botnets are infected computers that...

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San Diego Regional Fraud Task Force releases photos of suspected ATM skimmers

Devices to skim payment card information have become a big problem, whether they are portable devices used by dishonest employees at restaurants, PIN pads replaced at merchants, or devices mounted on ATM machines.Many of the devices used recently -- use wireless technology -- and the card details are transmitted to fraudsters, normally sitting in a...

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Just what Dad doesn't need for Father's Day - a Hallmark card with a Trojan hidden inside

This isn't the first time that malicious software is being sent disguised as an e-card, but when something works, scammers often use it, time and time, again.Mary Landesman of About.com is warning all of us:The latest greeting card scam is once again targeting Hallmark. The bogus email claims "you have recieved a Hallmark E-Card!" The first tip-off for the security conscious should be the misspelled 'recieved' - it's I before E except after C (or when sounded like A as in neighbor and weigh). One would assume the prose experts at Hallmark would...

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Lifelock founder (Robert Maynard Jr.) resigns, while Fred Thompson takes heat for pitching the company

Kim Zetter from Wired News announced this today:LifeLock co-founder Robert Maynard, Jr. has resigned from his position with the identity theft protection company following a story published in the Phoenix New Times about his past, which I wrote about last week. CEO Todd Davis left me a voicemail message this morning saying, "Even though we found no merit to any of the claims made by the New Times article . . . Robert Maynard has chosen to step down from the company so we don't allow any distractions or anyone have the ability to question the integrity...

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We all could be at risk of losing our freedom and becoming the next Julie Amero

Julie Amero, a substitute teacher previously convicted of showing porn to students, is getting a new trial.Given the evidence brought forward after the trial, I'm pretty shocked they didn't just drop the whole matter.Stephanie Reitz of the AP is reporting (courtesy of the Washington Post):The computer was sent to a state laboratory after the trial, and the judge said Wednesday that those findings may contradict evidence presented by the state computer expert."The jury may have relied, at least in part, on that faulty information," said Judge Hillary...

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The Phishermen keep using the IRS name to hook Phish (Identity Theft Victims)

Phishing has become a huge problem. Criminals (phishermen) spoof (impersonate) a brand or organization that people trust to trick people into giving up their personal, or financial information. The information is then used to steal money.In the more sophisticated attempts, malware (crimeware) is dropped on a system that logs keystrokes, gathering even...

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The Virginia Watchdog - one woman making a difference in the war against Identity Theft

*Cartoon courtesy of the Virginia Watchdog site.BJ (Betty) Ostergren a.k.a. “the Virginia Watchdog” is ONE woman making a difference on a daily basis. The way she makes a difference is by stopping our personal information from being plastered all over the Internet by local governments.Most of these records have been sitting in different county offices...

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Spear phishermen target executives to steal company information

Shamus McGillicuddy of CIO News highlights an interesting fact, which is you never know, who is going to fall for a phishing scam.The phishermen normally send out a lot of bait (spam) in the hopes of hooking a few phish.Shamus writes:Over the last week and a half, spam messages purported to be from the Internal Revenue Service and the Better Business Bureau have been specifically targeting senior-level corporate executives with phishing scams.Experts say these targeted phishing attacks, sometimes called "spear phishing," are nothing new, but they...

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Merchants demand their rights from the payment (credit/debit) card industry!

Not very long ago, credit and debit (payment) card fraud was considered a cost of doing business. With carder forums and data breaches, the cost of payment card fraud has reached billions of dollars, and merchants, especially smaller ones, are being impacted in a negative manner.There seems to be a looming battle on the horizon over, who is going to pay for all the fraud. Recently, in light of the TJX breach, legislation was introduced to charge more of the costs off to merchants.Merchants have always been charged for a lot of fraud in the form...

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Is LifeLock an identity theft protection service people can trust?

Ray Stern, of the New Phoenix Times, published a scary story about an identity theft protection service, called “LifeLock.”The article suggested that LifeLock was founded on stories that are questionable, and run by a Robert Maynard Jr., who seems to have a few skeletons hiding in his closet.Not all identity theft services are 100 percent effective, or worth the money they charge (my opinion). Many require their customers to surrender all the same personal information a criminal might use, which will be stored in a database.Databases are targeted...

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The new red menace, global commerce from China

You would think that we would have learned by now that products from China can be DANGEROUS for a variety of reasons.Most recently -- our pets were poisoned and millions of dollars of products were pulled off shelves -- after it was discovered that pet food imported from China contained poisonous substances.Washington Post article on this, here.The...

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