Will you be the next person arrested after a criminal borrows your identity?

With new Social Security verification laws on the horizon, up to 20 million illegal aliens are probably will have to come up with a legitimate identity in order to remain employed.Up until now, anyone has been able to make up a number and pass it off with false identification. DHS (Department of Homeland Security) was supposed to begin going after businesses that employed people with "no match social security numbers" in September, but a law suit has temporarily blocked them from implementing the process.Interestingly enough, one of the arguments...

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Symantec awarded $21 million award against Chinese Software Pirates

On Christmas Eve, Symantec announced a legal victory against Chinese pirates selling their cloned software at super cheap prices.Please note, I stole the super cheap description from Symantec's video called, The 12 days of Christmas Spam." The super cheap tag can either refer to price, or the quality of counterfeit software (personal thought).From the press release:Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) today announced that it was awarded $21 million in damages against a large network of distributors selling counterfeit Symantec software. The judgments...

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Storm Worm bot-herders use scantily clad women in Santa attire to recruit zombies!

Here is a warning from Dancho Danchev about a site that might leave your computer with a worm.The site invites a person to watch a bunch of scantily clad women in Santa attire for "free."From the Mindstreams of Information blog:Stormy Wormy is back in the game on the top of Xmas eve, enticing the end users with a special Xmas strip show for those who...

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Could buying that knock-off item fund the next terrorist attack?

While this story is from a British perspective, it reveals how the trade in counterfeit (knock-off) merchandise is funding some pretty nasty characters beyond the borders of the British Isles.Richard Elias recently revealed in Scotland on Sunday:The sale of fake CDs, DVDs, clothing and perfumes in Glasgow and other British cities is helping to raise money for one of the world's most-notorious terror outfits – the group held responsible for the slaughter of US journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.MI5 is now targeting British-based supporters of Jaish-e-Mohammed...

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Are Internet Check Scam Artists staging a December Surge?

(Picture of counterfeit financial instruments recently intercepted in the mail by an International law enforcement task force)In the past several days, I've noticed a surge in counterfeit check alerts from the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). From December 19th to the 21st, the FDIC issued 26 alerts from various financial institutions...

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$500 reward for eBay pirates selling super cheap (counterfeit) software

The Software & Information Industry Association is willing to pay up to $500.00 to anyone, who inadvertantly buys pirated software off an auction site.Software piracy is a huge problem. The International Anticounterfeiting Coalition estimates that counterfeiting is a $600 billion a year problem. They also estimate that the problem has grown 10,000 percent in the past two decades.More specific to the counterfeit software part of the all of this was revealed in a Business Software Alliance (BSA) and IDA white paper released in May estimating...

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MyTruston points out the two most important TIPS to protect your identity this season!

Tom Fragala at MyTruston wrote an interesting post about the two most important things to do during the season to avoid having a grinch (identity thief) ruin it for you.From the MyTruston blog:There are a lot of lists about identity theft flying around this time of year. 12 tips of Christmas, top 10 ways to protect yourself from identity theft...that kind of thing.Well, to save you time and keep things simple (less is better), I am going to boil it all down to two tips that most of you probably already do. But please, make sure you are diligent...

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Symantec reveals how the spammers are trying to steal Christmas

Kelly Conley announced the Christmas edition of Symantec's spam report on the company blog:Here we are the end of another year. As 2007 rolls to a close the December State of Spam Report reviews this past month’s key trends and reflects on some of the year’s most notable spam events and trends.The report notes that Bill Gates' prediction in 2004 that spam would be eradicated has proven not only to be wrong, but that the amount of spam circulating on the Internet has exceeded everyone's expectations (nightmares?).This month, three out of every four...

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Counterfeit Visa Travelers Cheques in circulation!

Counterfeit financial instruments are circulated in a variety of Internet scams. The ploy is always to get someone to cash them and then wire the money back to the person behind the scam.In the past couple of weeks, readers and other sources have brought to my attention that counterfeit Visa Travelers Cheques are in circulation.Visa has provided resources...

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Human beings are the reason for most security breaches!

If you think phishing is merely a financial crime, think again. Eleven employees at a nuclear research facility fell for a phishy e-mail, which appears to have been an attempt to steal information.The New York Times reported:A cyber attack reported last week by one of the federal government’s nuclear weapons laboratories may have originated in China, according to a confidential memorandum distributed Wednesday to public and private security officials by the Department of Homeland Security.Although the article suggests China may behind this attempt,...

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SIRAS offers guarantee that it will reduce retail crime

The reason SIRAS' product registration and smart return service perked my interest is because it protects people's privacy and is an effective means of reducing losses.SIRAS tracks an inanimate object (merchandise) instead of a customer's personal information. Now they are now offering a "guarantee" the technology will add dollars to a organization's bottom line by reducing fraudulent returns. In their own words from the press release regarding this matter:Electronic Product Registration, is putting its money where its mouth is with a unique Return...

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FTC tutorial on how to protect sensitive business information

The FTC has released a training tool designed to help businesses protect sensitive information, which might be stolen to commit identity theft or fraud.After taking a look at it, I found it to be simple, straight forward and effective way for a business to evaluate how well they are protecting information.From the FTC release on this new tool:Protecting the personal information of customers, clients, and employees is good business. The Federal Trade Commission has a new online tutorial to alert businesses and other organizations to practical and...

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Private Eyes charged with aggravated identity theft

This isn't the first time private investigators have been caught using social engineering techniques to steal personal information. The Hewlett Packard case raised caused quite a bit of uproar about this last September.Here is another case involving private investigators using illegal techniques to data mine information for their clients:Ten people were indicted by a federal grand jury in Seattle in connection with a scheme to illegally obtain confidential information on more than 12,000 citizens across the country. To obtain confidential tax,...

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Has hacking become too easy? Ask the child predator who just got 110 years for doing it!

Here is a hacker, who ended up in a lot of trouble after using malware to blackmail underage girls into creating pornography of themselves. The problem is it was probably a little too easy for him to obtain the tools, he used to pull his "hack" off!This leads me to be slightly cynical that putting one person behind bars for 110 years is going to solve the overall problem, we are facing with the irresponsible use of technology.Picked up this up from Sharon Gaudin (Computer World) courtesy of the NY Times:A North Carolina man last week was sentenced...

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Word of mouth is fraud's worst enemy!

FraudAid, a website dedicated to helping fraud victims has a saying, "Silence is fraud's best friend. Word of mouth is fraud's worst enemy. Pass the word!"In a world, where fraud victims have a hard time getting anyone to even talk to them this saying makes a lot of sense.FraudAid was conceived by a woman by the name of Annie McGuire, who fell victim to a fraud scheme, herself. Her personal story, which is told in great detail on the site proves that just about ANYONE can become a fraud victim.In my personal dealings with victims, you would be...

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IT Policy Compliance Group issues study on data breaches and information theft

Today, the IT Policy Compliance Group released an interesting report on the state of compliance and how it relates to the growing phenomenon of information theft and data breaches.The IT compliance group is a non-profit organization supported by the Computer Security Institute, Institute of Internal Auditors, ISACA, IT Governance Institute, Protiviti and Symantec. The report reflects the findings of more than 450 organizations that were surveyed.To sum up the main findings in the report:The most recent benchmark research conducted by the IT Policy...

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Are criminal to criminal (C2C) networks making cyber crime too easy?

With the FBI's announcement of Operation Bot Roast II detailing the arrests of several bot-herders infecting computer systems on an International basis, it's become apparent that a lot of crime is going on with the click of a mouse.One of the more amazing revelations to come forward from Operation Bot Roast II was that a teenager was described in the media as a "cyber crime kingpin." Most of the people arrested were under 30. This led me to wonder if our young people are getting smarter, or cyber crime is getting a lot easier to commit?I ran into...

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