Customer stops debit card skimming scheme at AM/PM

Another tale of a skimming device being found at a gas station has surfaced in the local Northern California news. In this instance, a savvy customer figured out what was going on and notified the Police.Koula Gianulias CBS 13, Sacramento reports:Skimming at the pump. Hundreds of dollars have been stolen from unsuspecting drivers. Recently, a local...

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Will the Stevens raid cause voters to trust politicians even less?

I'm predicting the upcoming elections will be pretty interesting. Confidence in our political leaders seems to be at an all time low. One particularly bothersome phenomenon are stories of elected officials being investigated for lining their own pockets. They seem to be surfacing with alarming frequency.It's no wonder that both the executive branch and house seem to have one thing in common - ever decreasing public support.The most recent event in this seemingly never-ending chain of disappointing stories is the raid on Senator Ted Stevens' Alaska...

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Correctional Officers steal credit cards from prisoners

Ran into a pretty sad story, where it was reported that two Baltimore correctional officers were caught stealing credit cards from inmates they were processing into jail.John-John Williams IV of the Baltimore Sun reports:Two corrections officers from the Central Booking and Intake Center were arrested yesterday and charged with stealing credit cards of people under arrest.Lontona Maria Webb, 38, of the 3600 block of Clarinth Road and Latoya Renee James, 24, of the 1300 block of Dalton Road each face multiple counts of credit card fraud, identity...

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The Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse seeks to disable Cybersquatting

Cybersquatting is where people, who may have less than honorable intentions, set up a website with a domain name that appears to be a trusted brand, or organization.Often, these domains are then used to commit financial crimes on the Internet.In most of the recent disasters, most notably the Katrina hurricane, some of these look alike domain names were sold for a lot of money. Sadly, these look-alike domain names, which victimize people and businesses, are being sold legally. These look alike domain names are used in phishing scams, also. If you...

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Orange County processing traffic citations in Mexico outrages citizens

If you get pulled over in Orange County in Southern California, the information for their traffic court system is likely to be processed in Mexico.Gordon Dillow of the OC Register did an interesting editorial about this phenomenon and the subsequent fear and outrage this has caused among Orange Country residents:The furor over Orange County Superior Court's "outsourcing" of traffic ticket processing to Mexico is understandable. After all, it brings together two issues of great concern to many people in this county: The outflow of jobs beyond our...

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Lifelock CEO's identity theft case dropped - authorities cite coercion as the reason

No one can dispute that Lifelock -- the identity theft protection company offering a million dollar guarantee -- is pretty aggressive in their marketing tactics. They pay everyone from bloggers to the likes of Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh and Fred Thompson to promote their products.It now appears that marketing isn't the only thing they are aggressive at.Recently, as a result of a New Times article, their founder Robert Maynard stepped down from his position after it was suggested that his stories of being an identity theft victim weren't exactly...

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iPhone hacked under laboratory conditions

There is no doubt that the iPhone, Apples new entry in the smart phone market, has received a lot of attention. I just had the opportunity to use one and they are truly an amazing toy, especially when compared to what else is out there.Whenever something is popular, Internet outlaws normally try to figure out an angle on how to exploit it for their personal (probably financial) gain. In the interest of getting one step ahead of the bad guys - some of the good guys are trying to discover some of the potential issues with the iPhone before they occur.Read...

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Certegy reveals their data breach is a lot larger than originally reported

Earlier this month, I blogged about the Certegy data breach, where a not very HONEST employee got caught selling information to an unidentified data-broker. Certegy was quick to assure the public that none of this information would be used to commit fraud because it was being used by "legitimate marketing firms."Now the number of records (people compromised) has risen significantly after Certegy filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission.The Tampa Bay Business Journal Reports:An ongoing investigation has determined that about 8.5...

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Congress is considering a law to stop Social Security Numbers from being posted in unsafe places

I’ve written a lot about how the buying and selling of personal information enables a lot of identity theft to occur. This multi-billion dollar industry assures our most personal information is available to ANYONE, who wants to buy it, and stored in a lot of places that might, or might not be very secure.With all the data breaches that occur, my guess...

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Disney learns (the hard way) that insiders can be the biggest threat to information security

In the world of data breaches, nothing is sacred, not even Disney. It has come to light that a subcontractor (Alta Resources, Inc.) had an employee, who sold credit card information to federal agents.Jaikumar Vijayan, Computerworld reports:A subcontractor working for a company that processes and fulfills orders for the Disney Movie Club sold credit card numbers and other account information belonging to an unknown number of customers to undercover law enforcement agents.The May 2007 incident has prompted Disney to send out letters to an unspecified...

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LA Gangs take a vacation in Hawaii using funny (counterfeit) money

I've read a lot about street gangs, who used to finance themselves by selling drugs, moving into the financial crimes arena. Some say financial crimes are a lot more profitable, and the punishment for getting caught isn't nearly as harsh.Looks like some of them have gone West (Hawaii) to enjoy a little vacation financed with "funny money."The HawaiiChannel.com is reporting:Thousands of dollars worth of counterfeit $100 bills are flowing into Hawaii, most likely from Los Angeles-based gangs, according to Secret Service officials.For the last week...

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Task Force puts child predator away for 10 years

There is nothing that disgusts me more than crimes against children, or crimes against the elderly. The anonymous nature of the Internet has made it easier for criminals to distribute child pornography, as well as, for child predators to have access to our young.I happened to see a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release about one of these predators...

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The battle over who is going to pay for data breaches heats up

The TJX data breach (45 million records and counting) is rapidly turning out to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Everyone seems to be worried about, who is going to bear the financial burden that data breaches are causing.Cleve Doty at PrivacySpot.com writes:Retailers will be forced to pay for data compromises when they violate industry standards of data protection under a new Minnesota law, detailed here. California and Texas are considering similar legislation, as noted here and here. The Minnesota law adopts Payment Card Industry Association...

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A look into labor abuses in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina

Photo courtesy of Ruffit at FlickrIt never ceases to amaze me that we keep seeing additional allegations of abuse, fraud and waste come to light as a result of the Katrina hurricane, and it's aftermath.Brian Beutler of the Media Consortium (courtesy of AlterNet) wrote a pretty telling article of the abuses dealt to laborers, who went to New Orleans...

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Are passwords and codes, available in too many places, enabling crime?

Wired News (Kevin Poulsen) reported another instance, where an ATM was easily reprogrammed to think it was dispensing $1 bill instead of 20's.The same thing happened in Virginia Beach last September.Wired News reports:Police in Derry, Pennsylvania are baffled by a June ATM robbery in which an unidentified man wearing flip flops and shorts strolled into Mastrorocco's Market and reprogrammed the cash machine to think it was dispensing dollar bills when it was actually spewing twenties.In this instance, the factory code not removed from the ATM was...

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More arrests made by ICE as a result of the Swift raids

Here is an example, where some of the people enabling illegal immigration are being held accountable for their actions.Last December, ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) made a series of raids at Swift plants. At the time, they maintained the raids were part of a larger investigation.The investigation continued and more arrests have been made. Most of the current arrests consist of people, who are not illegal immigrants.From the ICE press release:U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents Tuesday arrested 20 employees of Swift...

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Will stricter enforcement cause more illegal immigrants to assume real people's social security numbers?

Will a crackdown on illegal immigration mean that 13 - 20 million people will need to use legitimate social security numbers to work? In response to increasing concerns about illegal immigration, the Department of Homeland Security provides what is known as the Basic Pilot Program (web based), which verifies the validity of a social security number.The problem is that it only verifies, whether or not the number is good (matches). It doesn't show if the number is stolen, or even if the name matches the number.Please note that this program is a great...

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If Social Security calls requesting personal information, it might be smart to verify who you are talking to!

(Nice Photo courtesy of Long N at Flickr)If you get an unsolicited call from an "alleged" Social Security employee, it might be wise to verify (independently), who is calling you. Of course -- you should do this by using a number obtained from a legitimate source, and not one pointed to by the person calling -- who might be trying to steal by using...

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Stealing money from ATMs is taken to a more dangerous level

I've written a lot about ATM skimming -- where electronic devices are used to record payment card information, clone the information on a new card -- and steal money.A new and much more dangerous (potentially deadly) means of stealing money from ATMs is occurring. Although most of this is happening in South Africa, it has happened recently in the United...

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Why the GAO report on Identity Theft might show that disclosure works!

I came across a thoughtful post about the recent GAO report on identity theft and data breaches written by Dissent, who blogs at the Chronicles of Dissent. This is a well-written analysis, and after reading it, I was inspired to think a few things through.In Dissents own words:The June GAO report, Data Breaches Are Frequent, but Evidence of Resulting...

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If your car gets stolen, eBay might be a good place to look for it!

If your car was recently stolen, it might be a good idea to check out the listings on eBay, according to Dariusz Grabowski, a.k.a (also known as) as the "eBay king of stolen cars."Rick Hepp at the Star-Ledger reports:Grabowski and his crew would buy junked or damaged vehicles at auctions and look for similar newer cars to steal. Once they found a car they wanted, they would get its vehicle identification number, usually found in sales ads or right on the car's windshield.Today's newer car keys can only be duplicated if their computer chips are...

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Not to worry, check processing company (Certegy) believes the 2.3 million stolen records will not be used for fraud!

Large data breaches are becoming a VERY frequent news event! This time only 2.3 million records were stolen, a mere fraction of the amount (45 million plus) TJX lost. In this instance, we are told we have nothing to fear because the information was sold to a data broker.Ron Word of the AP (courtesy of the Washington Post) reports:Fidelity National Information Services, a financial processing company, said yesterday that a worker at one of its subsidiaries stole 2.3 million consumer records containing credit card, bank account and other personal...

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FlexiSpy - software that spies on people via their smart phone

There is already a lot of "buzz" that mobile phones, especially those of the smarter variety, will be targeted for their "information value."A product called "FlexiSPY" is being legally sold, which allows anyone (with the money to buy it) to invade the privacy of someone, who uses a smart phone.Here is FlexiSPY's marketing pitch (from their site):Catch...

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Phishermen impersonate DOJ in spam e-mail

DOJ logo. The press release mentions that the e-mail contains their official logo. Copying graphics is extremely easy to do. Internet criminals do this to make their spam e-mails look more official, or even to create totally spoofed (impersonated) websites.Recently, Internet Phishermen have spoofed the IRS, FTC and the FBI to trick people into giving...

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The problem of unsafe products from China are just a symptom of the bigger problem!

Interesting picture about consumer protection, courtesy of Flickr.In the past couple of months, we've seen some alarming stories about dangerous products coming from China.Dirk Lammers of the Associated Press wrote:Poisoned pet food. Seafood laced with potentially dangerous antibiotics. Toothpaste tainted with an ingredient in antifreeze. Tires missing...

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