DOJ announces strategy to go after organized crime in a borderless environment

I've often written about borderless crime being committed with a click of a mouse, as well as, the lines that law enforcement jurisdictions impose, which can make investigative and prosecution efforts, frustrating.The Attorney General and the Justice Department are announcing a new strategy to go after the problem.From the press release on fbi.gov:Today, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey announced a new strategy in the fight against international organized crime that will address this growing threat to U.S. security and stability. The Law Enforcement...

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80 year old man loses over $700,000 to advance fee (419) scammers

With spam e-mails offering too good to be true come-ons filling up our mailboxes, we often forget that there are some very real people who get victimized after falling for one of them.Of course with the availability of botnets -- which command legions of spam spewing zombies (compromised computers)-- even if only a few people fall for the scheme, the scammers still make a tidy sum off of other people's misfortunes.An example of this can be found on the Newport Beach Police website, where an elderly gentlemen lost a lot of money (probably his life...

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WTC construction plans/hundreds of worker's personal information trashed at Ground Zero

When it comes to information being compromised, a lot of it can be traced to simple human error a.k.a. "stupidity."A glaring testament to this fact is being reported by the New York Post:Hundreds of Ground Zero workers were exposed to potential identity theft when stacks of payroll sheets - which included their names and Social Security numbers - were dumped in the trash along with confidential plans for the new World Trade Center. Plans for the new Port Authority Police Station were also found.Fortunately, a homeless person discovered the plans...

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Nowadays, all you need to do is visit the wrong site to have your personal information stolen!

On his birthday, Uriel Maimon of RSA reflected about a lot of personal things (as most of us do), as well as, how spam and phishing are becoming more sophisticated and dangerous.One major player in the spam and phishing game are known as the "Rock Phish." In his birthday post, Uriel gives us a little historical perspective on the group:The Rock Phish group is a phishing gang believed to be based out of Russia -- and, by some accounts, is responsible for roughly 50% of phishing attacks by volume. The Rock gang has also pioneered several new approaches...

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Vladuz busted, according to eBay

Vladuz, the mysterious hacker, who seemed to take great pleasure in hacking eBay has been arrested, according to eBay.Ina Steiner reports on the AuctionBytes blog:A cyber-criminal who embarrassed eBay for nearly a year with claims he had hacked the site was arrested on Thursday, according to eBay. "Vladuz" had harassed eBay with his taunting from December 2006 through October 2007, when he accessed eBay servers and gained limited access to a very small number of eBay accounts on the eBay.com site. (eBay said at the time that at no point did the...

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Symantec releases Internet Threat Security Report

Symantec recently issued it's Internet Security Report, which covers the second half of 2007. The key findings in the report are that malicious activity has become web based, attackers are going after end users rather than computers, the underground community is maturing and consolidating and the bad guys are getting better at improvising and adapting.The report confirms that hacker tool kits are increasingly making it easier for less sophisticated types to effective commit technical crimes. Symantec also believes that these tool kits are being...

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Corporate suits targeted in spear phishing attack!

The mainstream media is reporting that the Phishermen attempted to spear a large number of corporate executive types this week.This form of phishing is referred to as spear phishing, or whaling. The intent of phishing is to trick an unwary human being into giving up sensitive personal or financial information, which is later used to for illicit purposes. Spear phishing or whaling is simply a more focused approach designed to target more specific targets than everyday run of the mill phishing attacks, which are sent out by the millions via spam...

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A final (???) salute to Attrition.org's Data Loss Database - Open Source

I came across some pretty sad news on Tom Fragala's blog that Attrition.org was throwing in the towel on their well respected DLDOS (Data Loss Database - Open Source).In their own words, this is the reason why they are shutting down:Much like Attrition.org's past defacement mirror, the time has come for us to say "no mas". In the past few weeks, it has come to our attention that too many people are more concerned with making a profit off of our work without any offer of acknowledgement or compensation. For those who aren't familiar with Attrition,...

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Privacy friendly Truston ID Theft prevention/recovery platform wins 2008 Tech Award

After just being named a 2008 Hot Company, Tom Fragala and the Truston team have another award under their belt.From the Marketwire press release:Truston®, a provider of award-winning online services for identity theft protection, announced today that Info Security Products Guide, the world’s leading publication on security-related products and technologies,...

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Making bail with funny money complicates legal matters

I guess the moral of this story is that it's probably not a good idea to push matters after you've been arrested.A Long Island man (Cyheam Forney) was arrested for driving on a suspended license, which is a misdemeanor. While attempting to make bail, he tried to pay with a counterfeit $50 bill.The AP reports what occurred at this point:Forney was arrested on a misdemeanor suspended license charge — until officers said he proffered the counterfeit currency as bail money. He was being held early Friday on a felony charge of possessing a forged instrument.According...

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eBay/Craigslist praised by Congressman for efforts to curb sales of stolen military equipment on their sites (?)

I've written a few things about scams and fencing stolen merchandise on auction sites. Recently, the GAO discovered that items stolen from the military are for sale on eBay and Craigslist.Even more interesting were the results of narrowly focused hearings (my opinion) on this matter in Washington, which can be seen at the bottom of this post. The reason I believe they were "narrowly focused" is because there is no shortage of fraud, phishing and financial misdeeds on auction sites.Of course, there is also no shortage of ordinary citizens and businesses...

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FBI reports scams against senior citizens are growing

(Picture courtesy of the FBI site)Ran into an interesting communication from the FBI on the growing problem of senior citizens being targeted by scam artists. Of even greater interest -- largely because most senior citizens now use the Internet -- a lot of them are being targeted from foreign lands with the click of a mouse.The FBI reports:The threat...

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Report challenges IRS that it is not doing enough to protect taxpayers from identity theft

According to a recently released report by the Inspector General for Tax Administration, the IRS is falling behind on a problem that has increased almost 600 percent in the past five years, controlling the use of stolen identities to file tax returns.Most of the identity theft referred to in this report is when someone's personal information is stolen to maintain employment. Here is the synopsis from the report:The IRS has not placed sufficient emphasis on employment-related and tax fraud identity theft strategies. Specifically, its prevention...

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Three law suits against Lifelock point to problems in the ID Theft protection business!

With the news that yet another class action law suit was being filed against Lifelock, it made me realize why identity theft and the subsequent loss of privacy seems to be a growing issue. As with most things in the world, money seems to come first and people take a distant second place.After all the identity theft crisis wasn't caused by Lifelock, despite all controversy surrounding the company. And the service they provide isn't much different than what many other companies provide, either.If I were some of these other companies, I'd be watching...

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2007 Internet Crime Report shows dollar loss at all time high!

According to what many consider a reputable source, the FBI, Internet scams have set a new dollar record ($240 million).Here is what they wrote about it in the press release (courtesy of the FBI site):Pets, romance, and secret shoppers.They’re each among the top ruses used by Internet scam artists in 2007, according to a comprehensive report on online...

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Model Networking Site (Babe Warehouse) being used to scam aspiring models

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Sensitive infared cameras discovered bound for China at LAX

Dangerous and counterfeit products, hacking government systems and espionage all have one thing in common, they are likely to originate from China.The latest example of this is being reported by the AP:Two men attempting to board a plane to China with nearly a dozen sensitive infrared cameras in their luggage were arrested on Saturday, a federal official said.Federal agents stopped the pair on the jetway as they were preparing to board the flight to Beijing.The men had been in the United States for about a week, said Rick Weir, assistant special...

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Identity theft victim branded a paedophile still suffering after proven innocent!

This isn't the first time, I've written about Operation Ore, where a lot of British citizens were wrongfully accused of viewing child pornography.Operation Ore was the result of an investigation conducted in the United States (Operation Avalanche), where a lot of credit card details being used to view child pornography were provided to the British authorities. It eventually led to a lot of people, including Pete Townsend of the Who, being charged with viewing child pornography.It was later revealed that a large number of the credit card numbers...

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NATO Summit and EU Conference address the global reaches of illict cyber activity

On the Internet -- crime, espionage and some say, terrorism can cross a border with the click of a mouse. Because of this, it probably shouldn't be surprising that this is a hot topic at the NATO summit, as well as, a seperate conference conducted by the EU.The AP is reporting:At a two-day conference starting Tuesday in Strasbourg, France, the Council of Europe will to review implementation of the international Convention on Cybercrime and discuss ways to improve international cooperation.Cyber defense also will be on the agenda when heads of state...

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Royal Canadian Mounted Police computers turned into spam spewing zombies by employee!

While the fact that the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) computers were exposed to badware because an employee was doing some "unauthorized surfing" makes good press -- it highlights what can happen to any business, or government system when human beings use them to go to the murkier waters of the Internet.Trust me, the RCMP isn't the only organization that has had an employee compromise their system in this manner.Robert Koopmans, Kamloops Daily News (courtesy of the Vancouver Sun) reports:The security of RCMP computers used to process evidence...

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