Mysterious Gap vendor loses laptops with 800,000 people's information on it

(Banana Republic photo courtesy of Paul Rene at Flickr)Gotta love the latest data breach at the Gap. First of all, it involves laptops stolen -- then it is disclosed that the information, which includes everything needed to complete a full identity assumption -- wasn't even encrypted.Stolen laptops compromising a lot of people's information isn't a...

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Tools to verify those too good to be true financial instruments you got in the mail

(Counterfeit check picture courtesy of cknlomein at Flickr)There are a record amount of counterfeit cashier's checks, official checks, money orders, travelers and gift cheques in circulation. This is an attempt to pass on information that the average person can use to tell IF the item is real or a counterfeit (fake).As a disclaimer -- this is only...

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eBay responds to the alleged Vladuz hacking incident

eBay is responding to the latest (alleged) attack on their site by Vladuz by confirming that the account information was valid, however the credit card numbers were not.Here is what the Chatter (eBay's blog team) has to say regarding their investigation:I've been in touch with our operations and security teams, and I have more information I can share with you about yesterday's incident on the Trust & Safety discussion forum. In brief, very early yesterday morning, a fraudster posted contact information and alleged credit card numbers for about...

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Video shows mock cyber attack on power grid

Ted Bridis and Eileen Sullivan of the AP are reporting about a video, which shows how a cyber attack might shut down our utilities.From the AP article (courtesy of the Washington Post):The video, produced for the Homeland Security Department and obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, was marked "Official Use Only." It shows commands quietly triggered by simulated hackers having such a violent reaction that the enormous turbine shudders as pieces fly apart and it belches black-and-white smoke.Although, this attack never took place, the article...

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Did Vladuz hack eBay, or is stockpiled stolen information being used to make it look like he did?

(Picture courtesy of Yahoo Group, eBay_scamkillers)There is a lot of speculation that eBay was hacked once again, and that Vladuz might be behind the latest episode.Vladuz, who takes his name from a famous Romanian prince, Vlad Tepes, has plagued eBay with a string of hacking attacks in the past. Vlad Tepes was the inspiration for the novel, Dracula....

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Trans Union and Equifax will offer a nationwide credit freeze at a cost

It appears that both Trans Union and Equifax will be offering consumers the ability to freeze their credit, albeit for what some consider too much money. Thus far, Experian remains undecided, whether or not, they will follow suit.Martin Bosworth (Consumer Affairs) put together a nice read, which explains the new service being offered by two of the three (major) credit bureaus:In a surprise reversal and a major win for consumers, the Trans Union credit bureau announced that it would offer consumers the ability to "freeze" their credit files in all...

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TJX class action settlement only addresses about one percent of the total people compromised

Friday evening, MarketWatch announced that TJX -- who suffered a data breach compromising over 45 million of their customers --has agreed to settle the class action lawsuits that were filed against them after the data breach was disclosed.The class action lawsuits referred to were filed in both the United States and Canada.Since most of the financial losses have been incurred by financial institutions -- who had to reissue the compromised cards and settle the fraud claims -- this settlement appears to primarily address the customers compromised...

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Lawyers conned in job scam on CraigsList

Quite often, fraud victims don't want to go public with what happened to them. In my limited experience, this can be especially true -- when dealing with victims -- who hold prestigious credentials.Fortunately, not all of them remain silent, and by speaking out, they protect others from becoming victims of the same thing that happened to them.Here is a story by Arin Greenwood, an attorney -- who was the victim of what seems to be one of the more sophisticated job scams -- I've read about:This is the story in which you learn how a graduate of Columbia...

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DIY (do it yourself) crimeware kits designed to steal personal information are for sale on eBay

Do it yourself (DIY) crimeware kits being sold on the Internet make it easy for non-technical criminals to commit fairly sophisticated (technical) crimes.DIY crimeware kits have been credited with fueling the information (identity) theft crisis.Ran into this interesting post on Cappnonymous (The Modern Day Beatnik Refuses to Die), which quotes a press release from PC Tools about crimeware for sale on eBay. The original press release from PC Tools points to eBay links, which have been deactivated.Fortunately for those of us, who might be interested...

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Sophisticated Russian check fraudsters arrested in Fresno

Eastern European organized crime, particularly that of the Russian variety, has become a huge problem, worldwide.On September 18th, six people of Russian origin got caught in what appears to be a pretty large check scam. The press and Fresno PD can only speculate, whether or not, the people arrested were organized criminals. I'll let the reader come to their own conclusion.Nonetheless, the story reflects what many consider a growing trend in criminal activity becoming more organized.CBS 47 in Fresno is reporting:Fresno Police said ten people were...

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Another 6.3 million people's information stolen at Ameritrade

According to the AP, Ameritrade is reporting that someone hacked into their systems and made off with 6.3 million people's information:Online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. said Friday one of its databases was hacked and contact information for its more than 6.3 million customers was stolen. A spokeswoman for the Omaha-based company said more sensitive information in the same database, including Social Security numbers and account numbers, does not appear to have been taken.The company would not share many details of its investigation, including...

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Internet crime victims report counterfeit American Express gift cheques being sent to them!

Scam (too good to be true) lure courtesy of miriyaparino at Flickr.Counterfeit checks like all the ones recently discovered by an International law enforcement team being sent from Nigeria aren't the only bogus financial instruments being sent all over the world.In this recent effort against this activity, over 15,000 counterfeit instruments were discovered...

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Attacks on scam fighting sites prove that they are making an impact against Internet crime!

Just got a comment on my post, Anti scammers under attack by Storm botnet from the folks at Artists Against 419 stating that their site is back up after being under a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack.After seeing this, I ran into a good article covering the recent attacks on anti-scam sites by Erik Larkin at PC World (courtesy of InfoWorld). In the article, Eric quoted Paul Laudanski as saying:"The criminals are in it for the money," he says. "It's a huge business for them. [But] we're in it for the feeling that we get being on the side...

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Priest convicted on fraud charges

It never seems to amaze me, who gets caught committing fraud. Here is a story that confirms that fact. A former priest has been convicted of stealing a lot of money from his flock and the Church.A former priest pleaded guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from his church by setting up secret bank accounts to pay for a life of luxury, including traveling around the world and buying a condominium.The Rev. Michael Jude Fay, who resigned last year as pastor of St. John Roman Catholic Church, pleaded guilty Wednesday to interstate transportation...

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When considering our privacy, who should we fear more -- the NSA, or the communications companies?

I then came upon a story that explains one of the reasons why communications companies might be in such a hurry to bundle communications services.Frequently, we see articles about the NSA violating people's privacy. Recently, there was quite a stir about certain communications companies, who were providing them with a lot of personal information.Who should we fear more, the NSA, or the communications companies?David Lazarus (LA Times) did a really interesting story of how these new bundle communications deals have you agree to a thousand word privacy...

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Anti scammers under attack by Storm botnet

I happened to be checking out the Artists Against 419 site (one of my favorites) and discovered that the site is under a pretty nasty DDOS attack.But apparently, it doesn't stop there. I found this on SlashDot written by capnkr and posted by CowboyNeal:"It looks like the efforts of the anti-scammers at sites like 419eater, Scamwarners, Artists Against 419, and possibly others have become the target of the Storm botnet. Spamnation has a post about it, and as of this writing none of the above listed sites are responding. Spamnation reports that CastleCops...

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SIRAS PI - tracking theft to the source

Graphic demonstration of anti-theft technology courtesy of SIRAS.com.Criminals, who steal goods, whether with bogus financial instruments, or by more physical means might be in for a little surprise if the merchandise is protected by SIRAS PI.Last week, SIRAS made this announcement in a press release:SIRAS.com, the pioneer in Point-Of-Sale Electronic...

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International investigation in Nigeria regarding counterfeit checks could lead to arrests, worldwide

A joint operation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, United States Postal Inspection Service and the United Kingdom Serious Organized Crimes Agency has substantiated that a lot of counterfeit checks are being shipped via mail out of Nigeria.From This Day courtesy of AllAfrica.com:A statement by Osita Nwajah Head, Media & Publicity...

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Immigrants targeted in learn English (with Rhythm) scam

Immigrants are often targeted in scams because they are less likely to report them. Here is an example -- where the Oregon AG with some assistance from the Willamette University College of Law Clinical Law Program is going after four California corporations for scamming immigrants -- who want to learn English.Ironically, I seem to hear a lot of criticism about immigrants, who don't want to learn English. In this instance, people trying to exactly this (learn English), were being scammed!From the Oregon AG (Attorney General) press release:The lawsuit...

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