Finjan discovers criminal database with 8700 account credentials to trusted domains!

Is the Corporate World under attack by hackers? A new report from Finjan suggests that top level domains have been compromised and access details are for sale on the black market.It should be noted that government domains have been allegedly compromised, also.From the Finjan press release:Finjan Inc., a leader in secure web gateway products, today announced it has uncovered a database containing more than 8,700 harvested FTP account credentials, including username, password and server address - in the hands of hackers. These stolen credentials...

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Truston and Identity Force team up to provide identity theft protection/recovery services

Truston -- who provides a privacy and user friendly means to protect a person from identity theft -- has announced a partnership with Identity Force.Truston allows a person to protect themselves without giving up any of the personal information that is normally used by identity thieves to commit a wide assortment of crimes. It also allows a person...

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Australian Competition and Consumer Commission releases the little black book of scams

I normally write with an emphasis on what is going on in North America, but in the digital world a scam can travel thousands of miles with a click of a mouse, or probably more frequently a "bot."Most of the scams I see don't vary much from country to country.Ran into this interesting educational tool provided by the Australian Competition and Consumer...

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Will the Experian versus Lifelock law suit help identity theft victims?

Lifelock -- one of the companies that offers identity theft protection at a cost -- is being taken on by one of the big three credit bureaus. Last week, Experian filed a law suit seeking damages for their costs associated with placing and replacing credit alerts.Before continuing on, it needs to be noted, as it has been by Lifelock CEO Todd Davis that...

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On eBay, the buyer better beware!

Despite a lot of publicity that eBay is going after fraud, the bottom line is that the buyer better BEWARE when they purchase something on eBay, or for that matter, any digital auction site.This morning, I read a story from Wales, where a person just got caught selling laptops that didn't exist.From the Evening Leader:Christopher Malcolm Amos, from Green Lane, Shotton, admitted swindling customers of the online auction site out of thousands of pounds to fuel his gambling addiction.Under the user name 'Whitefruit,' the 22-year-old accepted payments...

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Mega Millions Lottery spoofed in scam

The California Lottery announced that the Mega Millions lottery -- where $270 million was won last night -- is now being being used to trick people into cashing worthless checks.The intent behind this is to get people to cash a bogus check and send the money back to them before your bank, or financial institution of choice, realizes the item is NO GOOD!Most of the time they prefer you wire them the money so it has disappeared into thin air when the criminal aspect is discovered. Once the money is picked up -- especially via Western Union or MoneyGram...

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Habbo Hotel Trojan Downloader poses as social networking site tool

Websense is reporting that a tool is being offered to "Habbo" users, which contains malicious code. The loaded tool is being offered by a third party software developer.From the Websense alert:Websense® Security Labs™ has received reports of a Trojan keylogger aimed at the users of Habbo, a popular social networking site for teenagers. As of last month, Habbo’s entry on Wikipedia said that over 8 million unique visitors access Habbo’s Web sites around the world every month. The party involved in spreading this malicious code poses as a third-party...

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Chinese Hacker(s?) steal data on 18 million people in South Korea

Data breaches aren't just a problem in North America and Western Europe. In fact, it's probably safe to say that that the problem has become International in nature.In the era of the global economy and with outsourcing, saavy hackers can probably get their hands on North American and European information outside those geographical areas fairly easily. IT is (also) probably less likely that anyone will be forced to be transparent about a data compromise in many of the areas information is currently being outsourced to.That isn't to say that everything...

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Hillary Clinton used as a spam lure to download malicious software

On Thursday, Kelly Conley reported a predicted spam lure (seen in the wild) using the 2008 elections on the Symantec blog:It’s election year in the United States, everyone must be aware of that by now. We've just observed a Trojan being spammed out utilizing a candidate's name, Hillary Clinton, as bait. The email asks you to click a link to download an interview with her."If anyone clicked on the link they were actually downloading "a suspect file, "mpg.exe," which is a Trojan downloader. This downloader downloads a file, inst241.exe, which is...

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Is identity theft on the rise, or declining?

(Sign above DMV trash can in LA courtesy of willnorris at Flickr)Identity theft is making the news again with the FTC's release of their statistics for 2007.From the press release:The FTC today released the list of top consumer fraud complaints received by the agency in 2007. The list, contained in the publication “Consumer Fraud and Identity Theft...

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The $54 million lost laptop law suit

Found this story on SANS Newsbites. Apparently, a former Best Buy customer is suing Best Buy after they lost her laptop and allegedly tried to cover up the matter.After going to a link on Information Week, I discovered that the plaintiff in question, Raelyn Campbell started a blog to chronicle her battle with the retailer.The blog states Raelyn's intention in her own words:I have filed a lawsuit against Best Buy and launched this blog in an effort to bring attention to the reprehensible state of consumer property and privacy protection practices...

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EBT cards probably have done little to reduce benefits (welfare) fraud!

Several years ago, one of the reasons plastic electronic benefit transfer (EBT) cards were introduced was to reduce benefits (welfare) fraud.Apparently, criminals preying on government entitlement systems have figured out how to keep right on scamming the system using this form of "plastic."Dan Cortex of the Free Detroit Press reports:An intricately coordinated raid 18 months in the making resulted in the arrests Tuesday of more than two dozen business owners and employees involved in a fraud that costs the state about $55 million annually.At least...

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A badge of authority is a time tested tool cyber fraudsters use to steal cash!

(Photo courtesy of brykmantra at Flickr)Using a badge of authority to lure victims is nothing new in social engineering circles. I've written about instances, where law enforcement agencies and the IRS have been used to hook victims for all kinds of sinister purposes.Another badge of authority frequently used is security software. Historically, a victim...

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Does healthcare fraud tie into organized crime, illegal immigration and .... corporations?

Read a pretty interesting article about how identity theft is being used (more and more frequently) to commit healthcare fraud. The article also alleges that organized crime is exploiting this activity to their financial advantage.Since organized criminals normally are hard to get a "quote" from, we'll have to speculate about how much they are involved in this phenomenon.The article written by Jim McKay appeared in govtech.com and quoted a section chief (Sharon Ormsby) from the FBI:At least 3 percent of U.S. health-care costs (about $60 billion)...

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Consumers Union launches Valentine's Day campaign against unfair credit card fees!

Consumers Union is launching a campaign for Valentine's Day to let Congress know that despite overwhelming evidence that credit card companies seem to be gouging a lot of people, very little has been done to correct the problem.From their website:Just before the start of this holiday season, the GAO released a scathing assessment of the credit card...

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Has the European Union become the primary point of origin for spam and scams?

Today, Kelley Conley (manager, Symantec Security Response) announced on their blog that the February State of Spam Report had been posted.An interesting trend showing that the European Union was now the number one origin point for spam was noted:The February State of Spam Report highlights an interesting trend in the shift of spam moving from North...

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Push poll favoring Clinton reported in California

(Photo courtesy of EYASU.SOLOMON at Flickr)I try to stay on the subject of Fraud, Phishing and Financial Misdeeds, but every once in awhile I stray a little off subject.Although, technically push polling is slightly off subject for this blog, it is similar to what I normally write about. "In the broadest sense, a fraud is a deception made for personal...

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Truston Identity Theft Services wins 2008 Hot Company Award

(Tom Fragala, CEO of Truston and Identity Theft Victim Advocate)The identity theft protection/prevention industry is enjoying double-digit growth in what many believe is a faltering economy. Everyone seems to be jumping into it, even the big three credit bureaus and a LOT of members of the financial services industry.Critics of the identity theft protection...

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The IRS must be a great lure to go phishing and vishing with!

It should be no surprise that scam artists, fraudsters and other internet misfits are trying to cash in on the economic stimulus package being proposed by the powers that be in Washington.The odd thing is the come-on, a tax rebate, hasn't even been approved yet.The most accurate information I could find on this latest trend was from the IRS, who is being impersonated once again. They've gained considerable experience with this type of scam recently with their name being used (frequently) as a fake "badge of authority" (lure) to trick people into...

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