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Four Waco women have been arrested on federal charges stemming from an alleged identify theft scheme in which thousands of background-check applications that were supposed to have been destroyed were stolen.

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December 17, 2010

Mesa police accuse Scottsdale deli worker of identity theft

Mesa police arrested a 40-year-old man Wednesday in connection with a string of credit card thefts they said he committed while working at a Scottsdale restaurant. ...read full article

December 17, 2010

5 face charges related to ID theft, tax fraud

Five people were indicted by a federal grand jury in the Middle District of Alabama on a variety of charges stemming from an identity theft and tax fraud conspiracy, the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service announced Thursday. ...read full article

December 17, 2010

Man pleads guilty in ID theft case

One of the main figures in San Antonio's largest identity theft case pleaded guilty Thursday. ...read full article

FARMINGTON -- A judge reprimanded an 18-year-old for his crime spree before sentencing him to serve six months in jail for vehicle burglary and identity theft. ...read full article

A West Side woman was charged in an identity-theft scheme that preyed on elderly and disabled nursing home residents, using their personal information to set up utility accounts for people who were delinquent on their bills in exchange for cash, officials said Thursday. ...read full article

The military's use of Social Security numbers and other forms of personal identifiable information such as birth dates places service members at a higher risk of identity theft than the population at large, and efforts to limit their use are meeting resistance by an "uninformed, sometimes cavalier" military culture. ...read full article

LAS VEGAS -- Parents of a Las Vegas school found out the hard way what can happen when cyber-criminals hack into a website. ...read full article

December 9, 2010

Locals named in fraud ring

Four indicted in sweeping credit card scheme

Athens — Several months of investigation by multiple law enforcement agencies in East Texas has resulted in the indictment of four Henderson County residents in a wide spread credit card fraud ring. ...read full article

December 9, 2010

4 indicted in huge stolen credit card ring, one still at large

TYLER, TX (KSLA) – The United States Secret Service along with several other agencies including the Tyler, Texas Police Department busts a massive stolen credit card ring. ...read full article

December 9, 2010

Woman's daughter steals her identity to open Verizon account

A woman in the 1400 block of South Ocean Boulevard called police to say that her daughter had stolen her identity and opened a Verizon account in her mother's maiden name in Wilmington, Del. ...read full article

December 9, 2010

Judge Won't Alter Award in Equifax ID Theft Case

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A cancer survivor who won more than $1 million from Equifax for improperly handling his identity theft report can keep the full award, a federal judge ruled. ...read full article

Dawn Marie Rassett wept as Maggie Samec, Ramsey County prosecutor, and Robb Olson, White Bear Lake city prosecutor, recited dozens of incidents in which she is accused of using credit cards and writing checks that didn't belong to her. ...read full article

'Anonymous' group launches attacks against Swiss bank for freezing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's account

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December 7, 2010

Hacked Indian Investigation Agency Web Site Yet to Return

Close to four days after the site of India's key investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), was hacked and defaced, the web site is still inaccessible to users.

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December 6, 2010

Visited Porn? Browser Flaw Secretly Bares All

SAN FRANCISCO — Dozens of websites have been secretly harvesting lists of places that their users previously visited online, everything from news articles to bank sites to pornography, a team of computer scientists found. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

NY bust: Medicaid patients' Rx drugs go to dealers

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Ethel Johnson couldn't get her prescription for pain medication filled fast enough. The 60-year-old Buffalo woman was hurting — but investigators say that wasn't the reason for the rush. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

FBI: New Barbie Could Be Used for Child Porn Updated: 1 day 8 ho

(Dec. 4) -- The FBI is warning that a new Barbie doll could be a gift -- to pedophiles. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

WikiLeaks' Swedish Servers Under Attack?

DEVELOPING: LONDON -- WikiLeaks' Swedish Web hosting company says its servers have become unresponsive and are probably under attack. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Conman posing as Prince Harry steals from Diana charity

London, Dec 6 (ANI): A conman posing as Prince Harry on social media website Facebook has diverted donations from a charity the prince had created in memory of his late mother Princess Diana. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Mesa County weighs damage from security breach of sheriff's files

GRAND JUNCTION — Western Colorado law-enforcement authorities are continuing to assess the damage from a major security breach that exposed employees' personal information, names of confidential informants and investigative files to public view on the Internet. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Hundreds of personal documents found in dumpster

TULSA - A Tulsa business finds hundreds of documents in its dumpster. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Jury Duty Scam Makes Rounds Again

Hang up! That's what the FBI advises you should do if someone calls you saying that you have missed jury duty and an arrest warrant has been issued. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Beware Medical Identity Theft

Fairfax County’s Office of Cable Communications & Consumer Affairs representative Vee Johnson briefed seniors at the Hollin Hall Community Center recently on ways to protect against medical identity theft. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

FTC Offers Businesses Tips for Securing Data on Digital Copiers

The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, has tips for businesses on how to safeguard sensitive data stored on the hard drives of digital copiers. Here are the highlights of the FTC’s new publication, Copier Data Security: A Guide for Businesses: ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Odds someone else has your SSN? One in 7

What are the odds someone else has used your Social Security number? One in 7. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

MD woman pleads guilty in tax fraud scheme that misused children’s identity information

Baltimore, Maryland - Twanna Dorothea Campbell, aka “Twanna D. Gaines,” “ Twanna Campbell-Moore,” and “Mrs. T,” age 32, of Baltimore, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to file false tax returns and aggravated identity theft. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Ringleader pleads in S.A.'s largest ID theft case

The white Cadillac Escalade scoured the San Antonio area for storage rooms of local hotels, looking for a jackpot. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Leak of draft e-health document raises privacy concerns

While Health Minister Nicola Roxon said consumers would "truly control" their personal electronic health records at her e-health forum last week, attendees did not see a draft concept of operations, showing a patient portal tacked on to a public/private providers' shared e-health record system (SEHR). ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Siberian crooks dev'd custom malware in ATM slurp heist scheme

Russian cybercrooks contracted a virus writer to develop custom-made malware before launching a plot to loot compromised ATM machines. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Supermarket techie in mega loyalty-point blag

A London IT worker has been found guilty of fraud offences related to scamming supermarket Sainsbury's out of loyalty points worth £70,000. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Lockport woman is victim of identity theft, fraud

TOWN OF LOCKPORT—A woman told police Sunday that she was the victim of identity theft and fraud, saying someone had illegally withdrawn $173 from her state benefits account. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Former Renton basketball coach Tony Giles sentenced to prison for identity theft using dead infant's name

A former girls basketball coach from Renton convicted nearly 10 years ago for sexual misconduct with a minor was sentenced Friday to nearly three years in prison for identity theft. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Man sought in credit card, ID theft

Crime Stoppers is seeking information about a man wanted on more than a dozen warrants by Fort Oglethorpe police and the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Martin MacNeill: Was his wife Michele's death accidental or was it murder?

Utah County investigator Jeff Robinson compares Martin MacNeill's life to the movie "Catch Me If You Can," but says the movie "paled in comparison." ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Woman pleads guilty to fraud, identity theft charges

A Montgomery County woman has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to defraud the United States and one count of identity theft, the Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service announced Thursday. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Abbotsford woman falls prey to sophisticated identity-theft ring

Police believe an Abbotsford woman has fallen victim to a sophisticated fraud ring stealing identities and cashing in across the Lower Mainland. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Ex-Sheriff: Mesa County Website Breach Could Endanger People

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. -- Police informants’ names and home addresses of sheriff’s deputies are among a mountain of confidential information accidentally posted on Mesa County’s public website for seven months, authorities said. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Palm Desert man accused of ID theft

A Palm Desert man suspected of using another person's Social Security number was arrested this week, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Website of India’S Top Investigation Agency Attacked

IDG News Service — The website of a key investigative agency of the Indian government was hacked and defaced late Friday, according to a government official. ...read full article

December 6, 2010

Hackers Issue Bogus Amber Alert

IDG News Service — Hackers broke into the state of Iowa's Amber Alert website and issued a bogus alert over the weekend. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

U.S. Social Security Administration Selects ID Experts and ID Analytics for Complete Data Breach Analysis and Response Services

PORTLAND, Ore. and SAN DIEGO, Nov. 30, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) has awarded ID Experts and ID Analytics a five-year blanket purchase agreement to help the SSA protect against and respond to breaches of personal information. ID Experts and ID Analytics will provide the SSA a comprehensive suite of services to minimize and protect against data compromises in conformation with SSA and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) compliance requirements. The agreement is the result of an open market competitive procurement. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Courts: Using another's SSN not a crime

Is using a forged Social Security Number -- but your own name -- to obtain employment or buy a car an identity theft crime? Lately, U.S. courts are saying it's not. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Identity theft: five simple ways to protect yourself

Identity theft has been around forever. Even in ancient times, impersonators would pretend to be someone they were not – a prince, a long-lost heir to a great fortune, a merchant who had died at sea. The Internet has made the theft much easier. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Firefox add-on enables identity theft

Stealing someone's virtual identity is now easier than stealing candy from a baby. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Former Louisville mortgage broker pleads guilty to identity theft

Former mortgage broker Brett Howard pleaded guilty Monday to one count of aggravated identify theft and 19 counts of bank fraud for using customers’ stolen credit card numbers on a spending spree that included luxury purchases. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Wikileaks hit by second DDoS

Wikileaks was hit by a second denial of service attack on Tuesday. The assault followed attempts to blitz the site off the web on Sunday night in the run-up to the controversial release of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Ransomware Trojan is back and badder than ever

A ransomware Trojan threat is back – in an even more noxious form – two years after it last appeared. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Researcher warns of iPhone phishing peril

Apple's iOS is vulnerable to web attacks that allow malicious websites to masquerade as trusted pages maintained by banks, stores, and other sensitive organizations, a researcher said on Monday. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Iran admits cyberattack hit nuke programme

The Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today seemed to confirm speculation that the Stuxnet worm obstructed his regime's nuclear ambitions. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Prominent Michigan Attorney's Identity Stolen

FARMINGTON HILLS, Mich. - A prominent Michigan lawyer has become the victim of identity theft. Richard Bernstein says he is not getting any help from the FBI, and even after alerting stores and credit bureaus accounts are still being opened in his name. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

George Castro Indicted For $5 Million Theft From Columbia

A Bronx man was indicted Monday after allegedly stealing nearly $5 million from the University over the last two months. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Former youth soccer chief gets 2 years

A former La Quinta youth soccer commissioner pleaded guilty Monday to embezzling more than $100,000 from the organization. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

Man gets prison in theft of $330,000

He coached little league baseball, served his community as volunteer firefighter and was described in court as a doting father and loving husband. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

China Blocks Access to WikiLeaks

China has blocked Internet access to WikiLeaks' release of more than 250,000 U.S. Department of State cables, with its Foreign Ministry saying that it does not wish to see any disturbance in China-U.S. relations. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

9 Ways to Shop Safely Online

Money was especially tight for many families last holiday season, and yet nearly 100 million Americans took to their keyboards on "Cyber Monday," the Monday after Thanksgiving that marks the kickoff of the online holiday shopping season. ...read full article

November 30, 2010

New ID theft on rise

As shoppers increasingly favor Internet merchants, new forms of cyber-thievery and ID theft have appeared to exploit unwary buyers, lawmakers warned yesterday. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Chinese government hacked Google, claims Wikileaks leaked US diplomatic cables

The Chinese government ordered the Google hack nearly a year ago, according to the New York Times. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Identity theft, counterfeit ring busted by Upper Darby cops

UPPER DARBY — A chance arrest for the alleged use of a bogus credit card led police to a major nationwide identity theft and counterfeiting ring, officials said. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Sagan complains of identity theft, says comments attributed to him were not his words

Slovak rider Peter Sagan has strongly denied comments earlier attributed to him by the Twitter account PeterSaganNews, saying that they are inaccurate and that he doesn’t know who is claiming to be him online. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Hilfiger SoHo credit scam

Joseph Diaz was doing a lot more than checking out clothes as a cashier at the trendy Tommy Hilfiger store in SoHo. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Four arrests over fake sportswear

Four men have been arrested after police stopped two vans that were carrying fake designer goods with a street value of about £90,000. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Elkhorn man charged with identity theft

ELKHORN — An Elkhorn man is charged with felony identity theft after he tried to convert a $300 personal check from his father-in-law to a $1,300 check, according to officials. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Woman charged in West Vancouver mail theft

A 31-year-old woman has been arrested and charged in connection with multiple mailbox thefts and with stealing the alleged victims' identities. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Lone hacker theory in Wikileaks DDoS attack

A denial of service attack against Wikileaks that brought the whistleblower site to its knees on Sunday night, in the run up to its publication of classified State Department documents, may turn out to be the work of a lone hacker. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

UT Medical Centers alerts patients about possible security incident

Close to 8,000 patients at UT Medical Center will recieve letters notifying them of a privacy incident concerning their patient information. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Confidential medical records scattered in parking lot

A couple of city parking enforcement officers on routine patrol in downtown St. John’s Friday morning found something more interesting than illegally parked cars. Randy Bragg and Kerwin Thomas discovered a huge mess — hundreds of papers scattered on a parking lot between Duckworth Street and Henry Street. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Council lost data on 'vulnerable' children

Sensitive personal information on 40 children in care was lost by Stoke-on-Trent City Council after being recorded on an unencrypted USB memory stick, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has said. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

ID theft bonanza left unsecured at state building

TACOMA, Wash. -- When we handed Lyle Lippel a set of documents that could have been used to steal his identity and cause financial ruin he said it was crazy and scary that the papers were so easy to find. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Insurance Glitch Affects AARP Customers

BALTIMORE -- A Glen Burnie man helped uncover an error in the AARP insurance program that sent life insurance reviews to the wrong customers, compromising their identities. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

Holiday advice: Safeguard against scams

Even the financially savvy can become victims of identity theft. ...read full article

November 29, 2010

FTC Warns Consumers About Online Dating Scams

The Federal Trade Commission, the nation’s consumer protection agency, warns that scammers sometimes use online dating and social networking sites to try to convince people to send money in the name of love. In a typical scenario, the scam artist creates a fake profile, gains the trust of an online love interest, and then asks that person to wire money—usually to a location outside the United States. ...read full article

November 23, 2010

Two former University of Central Missouri students charged with hacking, identity theft

Two former University of Central Missouri students have been charged in federal court with computer hacking and identity theft. ...read full article

November 23, 2010

Woman sentenced to 3 years for Katrina fraud

A 38-year-old Georgia woman was sentenced to three years and three months in prison on charges of credit card fraud and identity theft stemming from false claims that she was left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. ...read full article

November 23, 2010

Belleville woman gets 2 years for identity theft

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) - A southwestern Illinois woman has been ordered to spend two years in federal prison and pay back more than $9,400 she spent on credit cards she obtained with an acquaintance's identity. ...read full article

November 23, 2010

Front-room computer hacker jailed

A computer hacker from Banffshire who accessed highly personal data and photographs in a sophisticated email scam from his mother's front room has been jailed for 18 months. ...read full article

November 23, 2010

Scottish botnet master jailed for 18 months

A Scottish botnet master was this morning jailed for 18 months and ordered to pay £5,000 costs for hijacking many thousands of computers from his mum's front room. ...read full article

November 23, 2010

Chester County lawyer pleads guilty to identity theft in Upper Saucon Township

A lawyer who used an Upper Saucon Township client’s personal information to apply for credit cards has pleaded guilty to three counts of identity theft. ...read full article

November 23, 2010

Port Allen woman arrested in ID theft

PORT ALLEN, La. (AP) - Port Allen Police Chief Fred Smith says a 21-year-old woman has been arrested for allegedly stealing the personal information of more than 20 people in a scheme to secure payday loans for herself. ...read full article

November 23, 2010

Newark man sentenced to 12 years for operating identity theft-credit card fraud scheme

Wilmington U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Sleet, sentenced Joseph Aughenbaugh, 42 to more than 12 years in prison for operating an identity theft scheme that led to nearly $1 million in losses at local lending institutions. ...read full article

November 22, 2010

How to avoid identity theft while shopping online on Cyber Monday

ORLANDO -- Retail stores and shopping malls will be packed with customers later this week looking to take advantage of Black Friday and after-Thanksgiving sales. ...read full article

November 22, 2010

Jail escapee and accomplice found in South Carolina

A Monroe County inmate who disappeared from the jail last Friday has been located in South Carolina with his girlfriend. ...read full article

November 22, 2010

10 tips for securely managing e-mail

“As an IT manager, looking after your company email can be a major headache. Being one of the primary portals for security threats and other IT issues, it is vital that email is properly managed to protect assets and ensure employees remain productive,” says Leon Rishniw, senior vice president of engineering, Cloudmark. ...read full article

November 22, 2010

Nearly One Million Consumers Getting Refunds From LifeLock

LifeLock, an identity theft security firm, has begun mailing checks to customers nationwide, part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 34 states. ...read full article

November 22, 2010

County hospital fined $310,000 for privacy breaches

Taxpayer-funded Kern Medical Center has been fined $310,000 by California health officials after the state determined information about patients was improperly accessed or stolen. ...read full article

November 22, 2010

Foreign cyber spies target British defence official

Foreign spies targeted a senior British defence official in a sophisticated spear phishing operation that aimed to steal military secrets. ...read full article

November 22, 2010

Corporate laptops unprotected against theft or data loss

Over half of UK public and private sector organizations are at risk of data breaches, losses and leaks from portable PCs and devices, according to Check Point. A total of 52% of respondents said they do not use data or device encryption to secure their business laptops, and a further 8% admitted they didn’t know if encryption was in use. ...read full article

November 22, 2010

Bieber boner scam prongs Facebook

Spam messages purporting to show tiresome teen warbler Justin Bieber with a woody are actually a lure for a new survey scam on Facebook. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Malaysian man charged with hacking into federal bank

New York (CNN) -- A Malaysian man was charged on Thursday for hacking into the computer network of a U.S. Federal Reserve bank and for stealing more than 400,000 stolen credit card and debit card numbers, according to federal authorities. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Lawyer gets 6 months in Dead Sea Scrolls harassment

NEW YORK — A lawyer has been sentenced to six months in jail for an ultramodern crime that was all about antiquity. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Florida man charged with identity theft; held on $100,000 bond

EAST WINDSOR — A Florida man was arrested at the Big Y World Class Market on Wednesday and was charged with a laundry list of charges, including identity theft, police said. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

UH sued over data breach

University of Hawaii alumnus Philippe Gross applied for a job at the state Department of Health in February. That's when he was notified there are four other names associated with his Social Security number. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Ponzi Empire on the Internet?

LOS ANGELES (CN) - Bankcard Empire, a telemarketer, and a slew of affiliates are accused of running "a modern version of a Ponzi scheme, centering around false advertising and claims of major investment return in Internet advertising and marketing campaigns." A Ventura couple claim Bankcard stole $50,000 from them by charging it to their credit cards without permission, after drawing them into "a sham business opportunity that involves the leasing of merchant credit card processing machines." ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Unencrypted thumb drive causes breach at VA

Two recent privacy breaches at the Veterans Affairs Department involved employees who disregarded information security protocols they were trained to follow, said Roger Baker, assistant secretary for information and technology at VA. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Cyber criminals target Harry Potter fans

Friday's release of the latest Harry Potter movie has cyber criminals working a little magic of their own. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Holiday Season Phishing Scams and Malware Campaigns

In the past, US-CERT has received reports of an increased number of phishing scams and malware campaigns that take advantage of the winter holiday and holiday shopping season. US-CERT reminds users to remain cautious when receiving unsolicited email messages that could be part of a potential phishing scam or malware campaign. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

McAfee CEO: Get ready for tidal wave of mobile attacks

Next year will mark the turning point of the mobile application threat, McAfee President and CEO Dave DeWalt predicted during a keynote Wednesday at SC Congress Canada in Toronto. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Drive-By Downloads Still Running Wild

For some time now, the browser has been the most dangerous piece of software on the Web, and to hear researchers tell it, the climate it likely to get far worse before it gets any better. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Scareware SEO attack exploits engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton

Yesterday, the news wires were hot with the announcement of the engagement of Prince William to Kate Middleton. As ever with hot news stories, one thing is inevitable. It is just a matter of time before the story is picked up and used in blackhat search engine optimisation (SEO) attacks. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Debt collectors utilize Facebook to embarrass those who owe

Tampa, Florida -- Debt collectors can be relentless and downright rude on the phone, but now a St. Petersburg woman is filing suit alleging the company that financed her car loan began harassing family members over the social networking website Facebook. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

European Banks See New ATM Skimming Attacks

IDG News Service — Banks in Europe are seeing innovative skimming attacks against ATMs, where fraudsters rig special devices to the cash machines to record payment card details. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Explaining driver's license identity theft

TYLER (KYTX) -- CBS 19's Hayley Wielgus brings you the details on driver's license identity theft. There are a few ways -- people create fake documents, like Social Security cards or birth certificates, and try to get a driver's license with those documents, or they can steal someone else's legitimate documents and apply for a license in that person's name. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

German hacker uses rented computing to crack hashing algorithm

A German security enthusiast has used rented computing resources to crack a secure hashing algorithm (SHA-1) password. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Facebook message security risks 'open door to Web 2.0 botnet'

Security watchers have already begun fretting about the security implications of Facebook's new messaging system, warning that compromised accounts might be used to create potent Web 2.0 botnets. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

HITECH Required Breach Notification of Theft of Protected Health Information

A laptop containing patient information from Robert Wheatley, DDS, P.C. was stolen from a locked vehicle during the overnight hours of October 16-17, 2010, in Florissant, MO. Dr. Wheatley is in the process of alerting approximately 1400 patients seen in his St. Charles office that their protected health information is vulnerable to access as a result of the incident. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Florida hospital admits to data breach affecting 1500 patients

A data breach at Holy Cross Hospital in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., resulted in the theft of sensitive information concerning 1500 patients who visited the hospital’s emergency room. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Almost a half million people have been victims of data breaches in Hawaii

Since 2005, at least 479 000 personal records have been breached in the state of Hawaii – records on one out of every three residents – according to a report by the Liberty Coalition. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

Hacker Breaks into Federal Reserve: Feds

A Malaysian man hacked his way into the Federal Reserve Bank's computers in Cleveland and also separately had more than 400,000 stolen credit card numbers when Secret Service agents finally caught up with him, federal prosecutors said. ...read full article

November 19, 2010

'Friendly fraud' a hassle for you, too

The next time you call your bank to dispute a fraudulent credit card charge, get ready for some extra hassle. And you might already have noticed that more shippers are requiring signatures for delivery of merchandise, a major headache for those who aren’t home during the daytime as the holiday shopping season arrives. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Computer virus Stuxnet a 'game changer,' DHS official tells Senate

Washington (CNN) -- A highly complex computer attack that may have been targeting Iran's nuclear power plants is posing a serious security threat to critical infrastructure worldwide, according to government and cyber-industry experts testifying Wednesday on Capitol Hill. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

China Telecom Operator Denies Hijacking Internet Traffic

IDG News Service — China's largest fixed-line phone carrier has denied it hijacked worldwide Internet traffic this past April following a U.S. government report that said the company had redirected network routes through Chinese servers. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Facebook messaging poses risks for users: watchdog

SINGAPORE (AFP) – Facebook's new online messaging service makes users of the social networking site more vulnerable to identity theft by cybercriminals, computer security firm Sophos warned Thursday. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

ICE requests hold on Ottumwa identity theft suspect

OTTUMWA, IOWA -- A case of identity theft has landed an Ottumwa man in jail. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Whitehat cracks notorious rootkit wide open

A malware analyst has deconstructed a highly advanced piece of crimeware believed to be the work of the notorious Russian Business Network ...read full article

November 18, 2010

FBI brass ask Google, Facebook to expand wiretaps

Top officials from the FBI traveled to Silicon Valley on Tuesday to persuade Facebook and Google executives to support a proposal that would make it easier for law enforcement to wiretap the companies' users. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Adobe update tackles PDF peril

Adobe released an unscheduled update to Reader and Acrobat on Tuesday that addresses a variety of security bugs in its PDF software, including an unpatched flaw that has become the subject of hacking attacks over recent weeks. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Credit Card Details Stolen from ECS Learning Systems Customer Database

ECS Learning Systems, a seller of K-12 state-specific test prep materials, has sent notification letters to 1,300 customers after unidentified attackers hacked into its customer database and stole credit card data. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Hard Drive With Messiah Student Information Missing

GRANTHAM, Pa. -- A computer hard drive containing personal information about tens of thousands of current, former and prospective Messiah College students disappeared about two weeks ago, a representative of the small private college said Monday. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Stolen - Passport agency grapples with identity theft in Jamaica

Assistant Commissioner of Police Les Green, head of the Major Investigation Task Force, is urging the Jamaican Government to invest in higher-quality paper for its official documentation, as a deterrent to the high incidence of identity theft. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

PAKISTANI MAN CHARGED WITH IMMIGRATION FRAUD AND FALSE STATEMENTS

BOSTON, MA - In a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Boston yesterday, Aftab Ali, aka Aftab Ali Khan, 28, formerly of Watertown, Mass., was charged with immigration fraud and making false statements. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Neb. inspector accused of faking mad cow tests

A former Nebraska cattle inspector has been indicted on charges that he faked reports about mad cow disease, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Wednesday. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

NY lawyer faces sentence in Dead Sea Scrolls case

NEW YORK -- A lawyer is facing the possibility of prison time after being convicted of an ultramodern crime that was all about antiquity: using online aliases to harass people in an academic debate about the Dead Sea Scrolls. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Rogue e-mail makes Swiss bank lose millions?

Reports that a rogue e-mail generated by a Swiss bank employee has cost the organization around £6.2 million in lost business highlights the problem of data leakages caused by email errors, says Lieberman Software. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

LinkedIn attack comprised over 31% of all spam

Enterprise users experienced an average of 133 Web malware encounters per month, peaking at over 140 during the month of August, according to Cisco. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

The 12 most dangerous online scams

Consumers would be wise to beware of the most commons scams of the season before heading online to book travel and do holiday shopping. McAfee revealed the 12 most dangerous online scams that computer users should be cautious of this holiday season. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

10 holiday ID theft prevention tips

In the search for the ultimate holiday gift or the biggest bargain, consumers need to make sure that they are not putting their identity at risk this holiday season. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Top 10 Security Threats for 2011

Imperva announced their predictions for the top ten security trends for 2011 which have been compiled to help IT security professionals defend their organization against the next onslaught of cyber security threats. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Woman charged for alleged ID theft that stems from robbery

A 41-year-old Sheboygan woman has been charged with five counts of identity theft for allegedly renting an apartment and setting up utilities using the identity of a woman her daughter robbed in 2003. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Identity thief gets 45-month sentence

A woman who forged the death certificate of a nursing home patient in order to avoid a court appearance was sentenced to 45 months in federal prison Wednesday. ...read full article

November 18, 2010

Montgomerian pleads guilty to tax fraud, identity theft

A Montgomery man received more than half a million dollars from the Internal Revenue Service. Now, he could receive up to 25 years in prison from a federal judge. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

AvMed sued over loss of computers holding personal information

Five AvMed Health Plans customers filed a class-action lawsuit Tuesday against the health insurer on behalf of 1.2 million people whose personal information was on two laptops that went missing from the company’s Gainesville office. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

New settlement offered in TD Ameritrade data theft

OMAHA, Neb.—Millions of current and former TD Ameritrade customers whose contact information may have been stolen more than three years ago will be eligible to receive as much as $2,500 under a new proposed settlement agreement. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

EGF man to plead guilty in ID-theft case

An East Grand Forks man charged in an identity-theft case that involved dozens of local victims is expected to plead guilty at a Dec. 7 hearing. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

New law will provide stronger protection against identity theft

Manitobans will have stronger protection against identity theft when a new law allowing individuals to place a security alert on their file with credit bureaus takes effect Jan. 31, the province says. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Henry Ford notifies patients of possible breach of information

Henry Ford Health System has notified some of its patients that their personal health information may have been breached after an employee’s laptop computer was stolen Sept. 24. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Nebraska students' financial privacy breached

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - An effort to ensure transparency in state spending has resulted in the posting of private financial aid and loan information about thousands of University of Nebraska students. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

'Red Flag Rules' catch card offices by surprise

Students, either because of their naivety or just plain carelessness, are ideal candidates to have their identities stolen. They may loan their campus card to another student to use in the dining hall or just leave their card and other personal possessions unattended while they participate in a basketball game. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Chinese ISP hijacked US military, gov web traffic

Eight months after 15 percent of the world's internet traffic was mysteriously diverted through China, investigators for a US Congressional committee remain wary of the Asian superpower, even as they're quick to say they have no evidence it's the work of the Chinese government. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Hackers hop onto royal engagement search results

Knaves, scoundrels and traitors to the crown took only minutes to leap onto yesterday's news of the royal engagement in a bid to expose sentimentally patriotic surfers to malware. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Identity theft suspects sought

New Castle County Police are working to the identify two theft suspects whose images were captured on video at a local Target Store when they attempted to open an account. Due to technical problems, an image was not supplied in an earlier version of this story). ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Credit Swindlers Claim UK Victims

YORK, England, November 17, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Identity thieves have devalued the credit ratings of thousands of unsuspecting Brits according to a new study. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

PayPal Users Beware of Holiday Phishing Scam

With Black Friday quickly approaching, and retailers racing to outdo each other with earlier and earlier deals, it is safe to say that the holiday shopping season has begun. If you're shopping online, though, and paying with PayPal--be warned. There is a phishing attack targeted just for you. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Man Charged with Stealing Secrets From Wireless Company Sirf

A San Ramon, California, man is facing charges he stole valuable technology from his former employer in hopes of building competitive location-aware products. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Hackers, Spammers Will Target Facebook Messages, Say Experts

Facebook's revamped Messages will be a very attractive target for spammers, scammers and malware makers, security experts said today. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Former Special Olympics Employee Sentenced to Prison

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- A former bookkeeper for the West Virginia Special Olympics has been sentenced to six months in federal prison in the theft of more than $163,000 from the nonprofit group. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Report: IRC Botnets Dying...But Not Dead

Once the most common form of malicious computer network, botnets that use the IRC (Internet Relay Chat) protocol are going the way of the Brontosaurus, according to a report from Internet security monitoring firm Team Cymru. ...read full article

November 17, 2010

Malware growth reaches record rate

Malware growth has reached its highest levels, with an average of 60,000 new pieces of malware identified every day, according to the latest threat report from security firm McAfee. ...read full article

November 16, 2010

Detroit Hospital Security Breach

DETROIT, Mich. -- Henry Ford Health Systems has notified patients of a possible security breach after a laptop was stolen out of an unlocked medical urology office September 24th. Representatives with the hospital said although the password was protected there is a possibility some personal patient information could be at risk. ...read full article

November 16, 2010

Doctor to keep fighting privacy complaint

An Invercargill doctor is refusing to settle over a privacy complaint, saying it would be "moral cowardice". ...read full article

November 16, 2010

Nebraska auditor, agency director continue to dispute release of health records

A legislative committee clarified Friday how a performance audit of state employees' health insurance plans will be conducted -- and that the identity of employees will not be passed on to state Auditor Mike Foley's staff. ...read full article

November 16, 2010

Man Learns Of Stolen Identity On Facebook

WARWICK, R.I. -- A Rhode Island couple has been charged with illegally using the personal information of an American citizen living in Dublin, Ireland, who says he learned of the alleged scam through Facebook. ...read full article

November 16, 2010

Medical Identity Theft Ordeal

You've all heard stories about identity theft, but nothing like this. Imagine: someone walks into a hospital to get major surgery that costs thousands of dollars and does it all in your name. Then that person sticks you with the bills ...read full article

November 16, 2010

Internet Crime Complaint Center Reaches 2 Million Entries

FAIRMONT, WV (November 15, 2010)—The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has logged its 2 millionth consumer complaint alleging online criminal activity. The milestone entry was submitted on November 9. ...read full article

November 16, 2010

Copy machine identity theft is becoming a bigger problem

JEFFERSON CITY, MO -- The threat of identity theft has us all doing things different. ...read full article

November 16, 2010

At FTC’s Request, Court Shutters International Robocall Operation

At the request of the Federal Trade Commission, a federal district court in Chicago has shut down an international robocall ring that allegedly conned consumers out of $995 each with false promises that it would reduce their credit card interest rates, but provided little or nothing in return. ...read full article

November 15, 2010

Man declared dead in '94 arrested in kidnapping case

(CNN) -- Federal agents in Gulfport, Mississippi, arrested Sunday a 53-year old man, declared dead in 1994, on kidnapping charges. ...read full article

November 15, 2010

Stolen Numbers, Stolen Identities

FRESNO — Document counterfeiters often choose a Social Security number at random when creating a fake card. That can mean trouble for somebody else. ...read full article

November 15, 2010

The Great Cyberheist

One night in July 2003, a little before midnight, a plainclothes N.Y.P.D. detective, investigating a series of car thefts in upper Manhattan, followed a suspicious-looking young man with long, stringy hair and a nose ring into the A.T.M. lobby of a bank. Pretending to use one of the machines, the detective watched as the man pulled a debit card from his pocket and withdrew hundreds of dollars in cash. Then he pulled out another card and did the same thing. Then another, and another. The guy wasn’t stealing cars, but the detective figured he was stealing something. ...read full article

November 15, 2010

TraceMyID And Frank Abagnale Release 10 Holiday ID Theft Prevention Tips

STAMFORD, Conn., Nov. 15, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- In the search for the ultimate holiday gift or the biggest bargain, consumers need to make sure that they are not putting their identity at risk this holiday season. A recent online survey sponsored by TraceMyID.com, a leading provider of identity theft protection, detection and resolution services, revealed that while the majority of consumers take steps to protect their identity, many admitted to risky behavior that could put them at risk for ID theft. To help educate and protect consumers this season, TraceMyID.com has partnered with world-renowned fraud prevention expert Frank Abagnale to develop solutions and provide tips to consumers. ...read full article

November 15, 2010

Pair of scams make rounds in Reno area

Are you a senior citizen who received a call from someone claiming to be your grandchild, who urgently needed money following an arrest or injury accident? ...read full article

November 15, 2010

Auction for failed games developer hit by DDoS attack

Realtime Worlds' liquidation auction was blitzed off the web on Friday, following an attack on the website of auctioneers Sweeney Kincaid. ...read full article

November 15, 2010

Koobface takedown exposes money trail

A Koobface server takedown operation which began over the weekend has already shed new light into the operations of the infamous botnet. ...read full article

November 15, 2010

Council disclosed personal data on planning website, says ICO

The New Forest District Council breached the Data Protection Act by publishing the personal data of planning applicants on their website, says the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). ...read full article

November 15, 2010

New Stuxnet clues suggest sabotage of Iran's uranium enrichment program

Computerworld - Researchers have uncovered new clues that the Stuxnet worm may have been created to sabotage Iranian attempts to turn uranium into atomic bomb-grade fuel. ...read full article

November 15, 2010

Class Claims Chase Bank & 1-800-Flowers Assist in 'Insidious' Online RICO Scheme

BROOKLYN (CN) - Chase Bank and 1-800-Flowers.com provide essential services for an online racketeering scheme run by a "discount club" whose "insidious set of business practices" have been exposed by Congress, a class action claims in Federal Court. Trilegiant and its corporate parent Affinion "defraud the consumer into paying fees" to "clubs" such as Great Fun and LiveWell "that consumer[s] never even realized they had signed up for," according to the complaint. ...read full article

November 15, 2010

Sarah Palin e-mail hacker dodges prison

The student convicted of hacking Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account in 2008 appears to have been treated relatively leniently, receiving a term of one year and one day in Tennessee state custody ...read full article

November 15, 2010

A quarter of UK internet users hit by fake anti-virus scams, study reveals

Criminal gangs are raking in millions by exploiting security conscious internet users with rogue anti-virus scams, according to the Get Safe Online annual report ...read full article

November 12, 2010

Millions stolen in ATM fraud

Two executives of an automated teller machine dispensing company are currently waiting to be sentenced in a case of fraud perpetrated against Connecticut's Domestic Bank, which allowed them to siphon around $4.8 millions from the bank's ATMs. ...read full article

November 12, 2010

Facebook "free plane tickets" scams

Don't be tricked by the impossibly good offers that have lately been popping up on Facebook profiles. There are no free ticket giveaways - there's only the possibility of getting your profile abused by the applications that you are required to install in order to receive them. ...read full article

November 12, 2010

Holy Cross Hospital Notifies Emergency Room Patients of Possible Data Breach

FT. LAUDERDALE (November 10, 2010) – Holy Cross Hospital announced today that it has begun sending letters to notify some of its hospital Emergency Room patients of a possible compromise of personal data from patient data sheets and to offer free credit monitoring services. ...read full article

November 12, 2010

VNA patients are warned of possible security breach after computer theft

Waterford - About 12,000 current and former patients of the Visiting Nurse Association of Southeastern Connecticut will be receiving letters notifying them of a possible security breach of agency data. ...read full article

November 12, 2010

Terror Group Gets 'A' Rating From Better Business Bureau?

The Better Business Bureau, one of the country's best known consumer watchdog groups, is being accused by business owners of running a "pay for play" scheme in which A plus ratings are awarded to those who pay membership fees, and F ratings used to punish those who don't. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Fraudsters Target Veterans and Military Families Warns Better Business Bureau

The Better Business Bureau, in Alaska, Oregon and Western Washington, says fraudsters are targeting our nations heroes – military members and veterans – with several types of scams. Here’s what you need to know: ...read full article

November 11, 2010

2 ex-executives indicted in fraud

BEVERLY — Three weeks after the Securities and Exchange Commission sued a Beverly company accused of inflating revenues to boost stock prices, two former executives have been charged criminally in the scheme, federal prosecutors announced and the pair is accused of using the identity of a local drowning victim in their scheme. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Identity theft ring breaches Holy Cross

An identity-theft ring managed to breach emergency-room files at Holy Cross Hospital to steal Social Security numbers and personal details of about 1,500 patients, officials said Wednesday. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Facebook bug compromises top pages

A customer of Sendible, an online marketing service for promoting and tracking brands through the use of social media, e-mail and SMS messaging, has inadvertently discovered a flaw in Facebook API. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Botnet takedowns curb spam volumes

Spam volumes almost halved in the three months between August and the end of October, according to Symantec. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Nasty IE 0day exploit hosted on Amnesty International site

Visitors to Amnesty International's Hong Kong website are being bombarded with a host of lethal exploits, including one that attacks an unpatched vulnerability in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser, researchers at security firm Websense said. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Cybercrime strikes more than two-thirds of Internet users

New Norton study of 7000 web users is first to gauge emotional effect of cybercrime; victims feel ripped off and angry ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Losses from online fraud continue to rise

More people are having to bear the loss if they have been a victim of online fraud and identity theft, according to security company Verisign. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Colwood employment centre loses data on 212 clients

RCMP are investigating a possible privacy breach at a Colwood employment centre, after the personal information of more than 200 clients went missing. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Man faces 400 identity theft charges

Levittown — Court documents said a Lower Salford man's car was being searched in connection with a bad check that was presented at a bank when the personal information of nearly 200 people was found. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Identity theft victims can now register status at DMV

People who believe they've been victims of identity theft now can register that status with the state through any of Virginia's 74 Department of Motor Vehicles customer service centers. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Taiwanese Gov Workers Breach HIV Privacy Law

An HIV/AIDS advocacy group has condemned Taiwanese government workers after several of them shared private information about the HIV statuses of citizens drafted into the military. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Outrage expressed over security breach

NEW BALTIMORE — Even before the budget was passed at New Baltimore Town Board meeting, tensions escalated over the recent revelation that over 50 New Baltimore employees’ personal finance information was transmitted over the Internet. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

FCC Investigates Google for Data Collection

According to The Washington Post, the Federal Communications Commission is looking into whether Google violated communications laws when it collected personal data through its Street View service. The Wall Street Journal reports that intentional violations of the law could end up costing Google $50,000 for each violation. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Credit card fraud ring targets gay Seattleites

Authorities continue to investigate a wave of fraudulent credit and debit card charges that have targeted more than 100 gay Seattleites. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Salvager finds personnel files in trash

SHELBYVILLE, Ind. (WISH) - He thought it was trash, but it turned out to be a whole lot more. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Salerooms across UK hit by major credit card fraud

POLICE are appealing for help after a swathe of established regional salerooms were hit by a major credit card fraud last month. Victims are now recommending the adoption of a new protocol for regional auctioneers when conducting ‘cardholder not present’ credit card transactions. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Goodfellow student information stolen from vehicle

A binder containing personal information on 93 Goodfellow Public School students was stolen from a teacher's car in Springwater Township sometime overnight between Nov. 5 and 6. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Federal online glitch leaked private info

A major Canadian government website malfunctioned and publicly displayed the personal information of about 75 people, CBC News has learned. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Key data stolen from main government registry

A substantial amount of official data, including some classified documents on deaths, births and companies has been stolen in what appears to be an “inside job” involving officials in the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs. ...read full article

November 11, 2010

Unknown If Student Info On Stolen Computers

While students were enjoying fall break last week, someone broke into two Murfreesboro schools. Four computers were stolen, and now officials are trying to figure out if there was any personal information of students that could be in the hands of thieves. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Quiet Microsoft update fixes 11 flaws with three patches

Microsoft on Tuesday released three patches as part of its monthly security update ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Young women are the most likely victims of online scams, research shows

Women aged 25 to 34 are most likely to fall victim to online scams, according to research published today. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Identity Theft Reported By 33% Of Healthcare Organizations

A Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) survey has revealed that 33% of respondents said their organization has had at least one known case of medical identity theft, and that some cases may never be reported. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Popular Twitter account hacked by spammers

Spammers have recently hacked the account of Twitter phenomenon "Sh*tMyDadSays", posting a message to the popular page's 1.8 million followers. The tweet, which has since been removed, said “wow I just got a free dell laptop LOL” and contained a shortened link to a ‘make-money-fast’ website. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Microsoft Kinect may be eavesdropping on you

Released only five days ago, Microsoft's Kinect seems poised to start a revolution in gaming. And if you are one of the lucky people who already managed to get their hands on it, you might want to know that a specific setting regarding the device's microphone could allow other players to overhear your private conversations. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Businesses under all-out cyber attack, says Websense

Cyber criminals are mounting an all-out attack on businesses, which is likely to continue, according to the Websense 2010 Threat Report. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Spokane, Wash., men sentenced for identity theft

BOISE, Idaho -- The U.S. attorney's office in Idaho says two Spokane, Wash., men have been sentenced in an identity theft case. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Bank returns money in apparent case of cross-border I.D. theft

Without Sara Aguilar’s knowledge, she said, someone began withdrawing money from her Chase Bank savings account in San Diego in June. By the time the retired Tijuana telephone operator learned what happened, the account had been emptied — all $8,427.15. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Man arrested for identity theft

An illegal alien was arrested last week for identity theft for allegedly using someone else’s Social Security number to gain employment at several restaurants in the Aspen area. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Banks, colleges on list of dangerous places to give out personal info

TAMPA - There's no question in this day and age of identity theft – our Social Security number is the most coveted prize to a thief. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

MILAN: Police Briefs: Police seek man in bank fraud; graffiti reported; report of man 'playing chicken' on highway

A man using a valid California resident's identification altered with his picture is accused of defrauding to area banks of several thousands of dollars, police said. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Trucking firm owner heading to court

NEW CASTLE — More than 300 counts of forgery, document tampering and identity theft against a Washington Township businessman have been waived to court. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Gov't agency e-mails names and SS numbers of 12,000 employees

And the idiot award of the day goes to: the General Services Administration! While the GSA was created to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies, it doesn’t seem to be functioning well itself. On Sept. 16, one GSA worker mistakenly sent the full names and Social Security numbers of every employee (12,000) to a private email account, reports The Washington Post. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

ID Theft: Insider Access Is No. 1 Threat

Kirk Nahra says Social Security numbers are used too often. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Sad But True Crime Scam Targeted Holocaust Survivors’ Fund

For nearly six decades, a not-for-profit corporation known as The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany—or the Claims Conference—has been overseeing German government funds that assist Holocaust survivors. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

$42M Holocaust-fund 'rip-off'

This scheme was as twisted as a swastika. The feds yesterday charged 17 people who allegedly stole more than $42.5 million by scamming the organization that doles out German reparations to Holocaust survivors. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Bill O'Reilly hacker gets 30 months

A 23-year-old Bellevue, Ohio, man has been sentenced to 30 months in prison following a 2007 online crime spree in which he used a network of hacked computers to attack and knock offline websites belonging to conservative pundits Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Man pleads guilty to $4.8M ATM fraud

IDG News Service - The general manager of a business partner of Connecticut's Domestic Bank has pleaded guilty to his role in a scheme that siphoned millions from automated teller machines. ...read full article

November 10, 2010

Zeus threatens to strike down community banks

Small community banks with thin profit margins can ill afford the significant new security measures required to defend against the Zeus botnet ...read full article

November 9, 2010

Data breaches of patient information cost healthcare organizations $6 billion annually

The latest benchmark study by Ponemon Institute, sponsored by ID Experts®, finds that data breaches of patient information cost healthcare organizations nearly $6 billion annually, and that many breaches go undetected. The research indicates that protecting patient data is a low priority for hospitals and that organizations have little confidence in their ability to secure patient records, putting individuals at great risk for medical identity theft, financial theft and embarrassment of exposure of private information. ...read full article

November 9, 2010

Woman accused of $25,000 in food stamp fraud

A 35-year-old Gastonia woman stole the identities of seven others in order to defraud the Department of Social Services out of $25,000 in food stamp benefits over a period of several months, according to arrest warrants. ...read full article

November 9, 2010

Medical Records From Ob-Gyn Found In Dumpster

WOODSTOCK, Ga. -- Woodstock police have opened an investigation into the discovery of hundreds of confidential medical records discarded in a Dumpster outside the former office of a Cherokee County Ob-Gyn. ...read full article

November 9, 2010

Hacker sinks Royal Navy website

SQL injection exploited by serial military site 'show-off' hacker

The Royal Navy's main website has been taken offline following claims by a Romanian hacker that he broke into the site, swiping the login credentials of administrators in the process. ...read full article

November 9, 2010

Burglar cuffed after crime scene MySpace blunder

A Florida teen was arrested for burglary after he left himself logged into his MySpace account at the scene of the crime. ...read full article

November 9, 2010

Cyber Thieves Using Harry Potter To Steal Your Identity

Online hackers are taking advantage of the hype surrounding the upcoming Harry Potter movie by tricking people into divulging sensitive information in exchange for a free download of the film. ...read full article

The Halifax County Sheriff’s Office is looking for a suspect in an identity theft case. Maj. Bruce Temple said the incident occurred in October, first at the Travel World and Oasis located along Interstate 95 in Halifax County and was followed by another incident at a BP station in Roanoke Rapids, also located near I-95. ...read full article

November 8, 2010

The Growing Cybersecurity Threat

What's really worrying security experts, and how to fix the problem.

It sounds like something out of a spy novel: corporate theft, military cyber attacks, espionage through counterfeit electronics. ...read full article

November 8, 2010

Facebooked: My Stolen Identity and the Gay Teen Suicide Hoax

If someone had told me this story, I would be sure they were lying to me. My boss called me one morning a couple of weeks ago. He said, “Donny you need to get down to the office—there’s some controversy brewing.” ...read full article

November 8, 2010

Woman arrested in vehicle break-ins

Jillian Ellen Trumbull, 19, of Newark, Del. was arrested in a series of vehicle break-ins that occurred between the hours of 1 and 7 a.m., Sept. 9 on several streets in Concord. ...read full article

November 2, 2010

Marshals: Vampire Sex Offender Arrested In AZ

Has Teeth Resembling Fangs, Drives a Hearse, Deputies Say

MESA, Ariz. -- The U.S. Marshals Service said its deputies arrested a convicted sex offender who believes he's a vampire. ...read full article

November 2, 2010

Woman Accused Of Posing As Nurse, Stealing Identities

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Detectives are continuing the investigation of a woman they say posed as a nurse and stole identities of hospital staff. Four more victims have been identified in Albuquerque, bringing the total to 16. ...read full article

November 2, 2010

Call to boycott Barbie with built-in camera

MATTEL'S trademark vinyl doll is getting older but she has embraced technology - Barbie's new built-in camera abilities are worrying some privacy advocates and psychologists. ...read full article

November 2, 2010

Is it legal to use Firesheep at Starbucks?

November 01, 2010 — Computerworld — People using the Firesheep add-on may be breaking federal wiretapping laws, legal experts said today. ...read full article

November 2, 2010

U.S. Marshals Task Force Arrests Sexual Offender

Milwaukee, WI - Kevin A. Carr, United States Marshal for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward A. Flynn, and Milwaukee District Attorney John T. Chisholm, announced the arrest of Thomas Thornhill Jr. ...read full article

November 1, 2010

Identity theft is on the rise in Montgomery County, but there are deterrents

t’s no secret that identity theft has been on the rise in recent years, and while it’s difficult to investigate, law enforcement authorities catch some of the thieves and are looking at ways to combine resources to increase their success rate. ...read full article

November 1, 2010

Bomb plot sparks cargo crackdown

Governments and airlines around the world are reviewing security procedures after two parcel bombs were found in US-bound air cargo. ...read full article

November 1, 2010

Attorney General warns of online voting scam

There are many things New Hampshire citizens can do online, but Attorney General Michael Delaney said voting is not one of them. ...read full article

November 1, 2010

Canadian Pharmacy Privacy Warning for Americans

Online Canadian pharmacy lawyer warns Americans about high risk of identity theft, how to buy drugs online safely and save a bundle of money. ...read full article

November 1, 2010

A case of bombs and identity theft?

SANA, Yemen — (MCT) Yemen authorities on Sunday released a 23-year-old engineering student who had been arrested a day earlier for her alleged connection to al-Qaida and the foiled plot to mail packages of concealed explosives into the U.S., according to her lawyer. ...read full article

November 1, 2010

Identity thieves relentless in quest for your information

It's everywhere you don't want it to be. From skimming your debit card at a gas pump to phony financial e-mails hitting your cell phone or computer, identity theft is as crafty as it is continuous. ...read full article

November 1, 2010

Avoid getting scammed when looking to rent

CHICAGO — With fewer people buying homes in the current market and more people renting it is no surprise that scammers are targeting renters more frequently. The Better Business Bureau urges consumers to be wary when looking through classified rental listings online. ...read full article

November 1, 2010

ATM 'skimming' threat grows

Baltimore —Privacy experts, banks and others are warning consumers about a threat to their personal financial information: electronic "skimming" devices that record credit-card and debit-card numbers at ATMs, gas pumps or vending machines. ...read full article

November 1, 2010

Indictments allege charges of wire fraud and bank fraud

Three indictments were returned by a grand jury in Denver in three separate mortgage schemes, one related to properties purchased in Castle Rock and Parker, and one involving a Castle Rock man. The returned indictments were related to charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and related offenses. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

Identity theft is on the rise in Montgomery County, but there are deterrents

It’s no secret that identity theft has been on the rise in recent years, and while it’s difficult to investigate, law enforcement authorities catch some of the thieves and are looking at ways to combine resources to increase their success rate. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

Fresno Police Bust ID, Auto Theft Ring

Fresno police said they broke up what's being called a massive identity-theft and auto-theft ring late Thursday afternoon by arresting nine gang members and one gang associate. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

Insurance agent admits to getting $3,800 in unearned commissions

An insurance agent from Mobile, Ala., pleaded guilty in federal court to fraudulently enrolling four nursing home residents for insurance coverage so she could pocket $3,800 in commissions. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

Former IT Technician Jailed for Abusing the Personal Info of His Co-Workers

A former University of Florida employee was sentenced to a year in prison after using the personal information of his co-workers to complete online health surveys. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

One-in-ten customers switch banks due to privacy concerns

Nearly one-in-ten customers have switched banks or retailers because of unhappiness over the way they have handled their identity or privacy, according to the bi-annual Unisys Security Index. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

FTC Charges Marketer for Making Phony Claims That Dietary Supplements Can Treat and Prevent Diabetes

As part of its ongoing efforts to stop bogus disease treatment claims, the Federal Trade Commission has filed suit against an online marketer that allegedly deceived consumers with baseless claims that its supplements would treat and prevent diabetes. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

UH security breach, private student information exposed

PEARL CITY (HawaiiNewsNow) - The University of Hawaii (UH) on Thursday evening issued a security alert. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

University addresses security breach

A recent security breach on the Storrs campus revealed a list of former students' names and Social Security numbers and made them available on the Internet. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

Poll: Identity Theft Scarier than Internet Security

Americans are more worried about terrorism, contagions and identity theft than Internet security, according to a twice-yearly security survey by Unisys. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

Horror Stories of Mobile Money Fraud

With the mobile phone on the cusp of becoming a device for performing financial transactions, are we also on the cusp of a corresponding tsunami of criminal attacks on the mobile channel? Not to be alarmist, but yes. And there are already horror stories. In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

U.S. Chamber of Commerce releases guide on cyberthreats

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday released a guide to help business owners and managers identify cyberthreats, as well as adopt solutions to reduce threats and increase network security. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

US-CERT Current Activity

The US-CERT Current Activity web page is a regularly updated summary of the most frequent, high-impact types of security incidents currently being reported to the US-CERT. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

Official Urges Protection Against Identity Theft

Defense Department officials are urging servicemembers to be aware of identity theft and are providing ways for them to protect themselves, the director of DOD’s personal finance office said. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

Health insurers say data on 280,000 Pennsylvania clients may be compromised

Keystone Mercy Health Plan and AmeriHealth Mercy Health Plan said Tuesday that a portable computer drive containing the names, addresses, and health information of 280,000 Medicaid members in Pennsylvania has been lost. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

'Windshield bullies' a growing fraud problem

Some people call them "windshield bullies." ...read full article

October 29, 2010

Computer attack hits dissidents in Vietnam

WASHINGTON — Political bloggers in Vietnam are under a round of cyberattacks designed to block their websites, a sign of the widening use of targeted hacking to stifle government dissent worldwide, according to a new analysis by U.S. computer experts. ...read full article

October 29, 2010

What's the riskiest country to visit -- on the Web?

McAfee just released its newest malware mapping report, where it checks out malicious sites by "top level domain," generic ones like .com, plus all of those country-specific ones, such as .us. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

Fraudsters find holes in debit card fraud detection

IDG News Service - Over the last few weeks, criminals have been exploiting weak fraud detection systems used for debit cards with "flash" attacks, where hundreds of withdrawals are made over a very short period of time. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

Guilty plea made in fake credit card conspiracy

A California man pleaded guilty Wednesday in Tulsa to taking part in an interstate credit card fraud conspiracy that involved more than $107,000 and victimized 18 financial institutions, ranging from Merrill Lynch to the Bank of Hawaii. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

Woman pleads guilty to filing false tax return

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Federal prosecutors say a 42-year-old Baton Rouge woman has pleaded guilty to charges that she conspired to file false claims for tax refunds. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

Illegal worker sentenced in plot to defraud IRS of $1.2M

An undocumented worker from the Dominican Republic who schemed with his girlfriend, a former postal carrier and another man to defraud the IRS of more than $1.2 million was sentenced yesterday to 4 1/2 years in federal prison and ordered to make restitution of $97,748. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

Appeals Courts Criticize Child Porn Sentencing Guidelines

As the sentencing guidelines for child pornography crimes have grown increasingly harsh, a strong trend has developed among federal judges to reject the proposed prison terms as draconian. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

Palin e-mail snoop begs court for leniency

Lawyers for 22-year-old David Kernell, whose criminal prying into Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account caused an uproar two months before the 2008 presidential election, is asking a judge for probation instead of the jail term being sought by prosecutors. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

Fire relief scammer delays arraignment

A San Francisco woman charged with trying to scam relief aid by posing as a San Bruno fire victim has delayed her arraignment until this afternoon, days after she failed to show up for her court date because she was already behind bars ...read full article

October 28, 2010

National Cyber Security Alliance and Norton Study Finds Americans Feel Safer On a Computer Than a Mobile Device

WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Americans feel their home computers are protected from viruses, malware and hackers but that confidence does not translate to their mobile devices with 87 percent of people surveyed reporting they feel safer going online with their PCs than with their phones, according to the 2010 National Cyber Security Alliance – Norton by Symantec Online Safety Study released today. The study also finds that Americans' stated confidence with their PC's security might not be valid with less than half using the full protection they need to stay safe online. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

East Grand Forks man faces more charges in identity theft case

An East Grand Forks man now faces a total of 21 felony charges related to an identity theft case that involves scores of local victims. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

Cyber army moves to sell botnets signifies threat hike, warns Microsoft

Hacktivist group, the Iranian Cyber Army (ICA), has announced that it plans to sell access to its botnets, which have been responsible for attacks on social networks like Twitter and the Chinese equivalent of Google, Baidu. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

FTC Obtains Court Order Barring Credit Repair Operation from Making False Claims and Charging Up-Front Fees

A credit repair operation has agreed to stop making false claims and stop charging up-front fees under a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. The settlement is part of an ongoing crackdown on scams that target financially strapped consumers, taking hundreds of dollars of fees to purportedly remove negative information from consumers’ credit reports even if the information is accurate and timely. The FTC filed the action in “Operation Clean Sweep” in October 2008. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

Samuel M. Serritella of Garfield pleads guilty to taking $1.7 million from investors in horseshoe scam

A Bergen County man has pleaded guilty to defrauding investors of $1.7 million by selling unregistered shares of stock in his startup horseshoe manufacturing company and misappropriating investor funds for his personal use. More than 300 investors lost money. ...read full article

October 28, 2010

Click here to find out more! Home » Data Protection In Depth E-voting: How secure is it?

Election fraud and vote tampering is as old as government. Before the American Revolution, most voting was done by voice. Voters would call out their pick for all to hear, which lead to intimidation and other nefarious tactics by those hoping to impact election results. The creation of the secret ballot was an improvement, but brought with it another host of possible modes of manipulation. In a quote that is now famous in American history, corrupt politician and Tammany Hall leader Boss Tweed often told constituents to 'vote early, and often.' ...read full article

October 27, 2010

Alabama Tax Preparer Charged with Tax Fraud and Identity Theft

WASHINGTON – An Elmore County, Ala., tax return preparer was indicted in the Middle District of Alabama for tax fraud and identity theft, the Justice Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced today. Sharon D. Thurman, who owned and operated "Sharon’s Tax Services," was charged with 14 counts of making false claims for tax refunds, two counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of theft of government money. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

Federal probe reveals exploitation of elderly

(CNN) -- A federal investigation has uncovered hundreds of allegations of physical and mental abuse and financial exploitation of the elderly, all happening under what is supposed to be the watchful eye of the courts. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

Caregiver for man, 82, charged with forging checks

A 24-year-old caregiver from Sheboygan was charged Tuesday with three felonies for allegedly cashing checks belonging to an 82-year-old man she was caring for. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

LifeLock Warns Consumers of Skimming Scrooges This Holiday Shopping Season

TEMPE, Ariz.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--As the holiday shopping season draws near, LifeLock, the industry leader in proactive identity theft protection, wants to arm consumers with smart shopping habits to help protect against increasing threats of identity theft. According to a September poll conducted by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, 66% of respondents feel that they are at risk for identity theft. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

2 charged in alleged ATM 'skimming' scheme

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Authorities in New Jersey have charged two Bulgarian men with scanning personal information from ATM machines and withdrawing more than $200,000 from customers' accounts. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

Identity theft case grows

A Weldon woman is in jail today, charged with multiple counts of identity theft and obtaining property by false pretenses. Latoria Artis, 25, was arrested, authorities said, after the Halifax County Sheriff's Office received a report Oct. 1 pertaining to identity theft in the Roanoke Rapids area. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

One in five use birthday as PIN number

A study by MyVoucherCodes.co.uk found that 18pc of the 1,576 people interviewed used their birthday as their PIN code, with a further 13pc keeping their PIN written down somewhere in their wallet, making it an easy target for thieves. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

How to contest a debt you don't owe

If a debt collector is contacting you about a debt you know you don't owe, explaining your case can be an uphill battle. Whether it's a matter of mistaken identity, an honest error or identity theft, the Better Business Bureau of Acadiana recommends taking five steps to fight back against erroneous debt collectors. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

Majority of Smartphone Users Admit Accessing Employer Networks Without Permission

Four out of five people cite "level of security" as a top or high priority when buying or using smartphones and tablet computers - and more than half are anxious about losing their mobile devices, protecting their identities and protecting their families with parental controls. At the same time, nearly three out of four people surveyed use their mobile devices to share or access sensitive personal or business information. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

Woman admits stealing millions

A Waycross woman has pleaded guilty to a scheme to steal more than $2 million from her former Blackshear employer, Ace Pole Company. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

Woman arrested for credit card fraud

LAS CRUCES - Police have arrested a Las Cruces woman who is believed to have committed multiple counts of credit card fraud, forgery and identity theft against her former employer. ...read full article

October 27, 2010

Man Sold Patients' Records, Gets 11 Years

A handicapped Florida man was sentenced to 11 years in prison for buying stolen patients' hospital records, creating hefty kickbacks for himself. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Computer security head suspended over e-mail spying

The head of computer systems security for the Ohio Department of Public Safety was suspended today amid the fallout from an e-mail spying scheme. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

MySpace joins Facebook in info-sharing shame

MySpace has been found to be sharing user data with third parties just days after similar revelations at larger rival Facebook. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Online identity fraud hits 10% of UK users

Ten per cent of UK adults who use the internet have been victims of online identity fraud in the past year, a report has found. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

New Firefox add-on hijacks Facebook, Twitter sessions

Computerworld - A new Firefox add-on lets "pretty much anyone" scan a Wi-Fi network and hijack others' access to Facebook, Twitter and a host of other services, a security researcher warned today. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Hedge Fund Fraud Alleged in Connecticut

HARTFORD, Conn. (CN) - Hedge fund manager Stephen Hicks used his two unregistered hedge fund advisory companies to defraud investors "in three different ways," after taking millions of dollars from them, the SEC says. The agency sued Hicks, 52, of Ridgefield, Conn., and his companies, Southridge Capital Management and Southridge Advisors. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Third trial to begin in $1.92M music piracy case

A third trial is set to begin in a bitter, closely watched legal battle between Minnesota native Jammie Thomas-Rasset and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Dutch team up with Armenia for Bredolab botnet take down

IDG News Service - Armenian authorities arrested a 27-year-old man on Tuesday on suspicion of running a large botnet that was dismantled after a unique take-down operation by Dutch law enforcement and computer security experts on Monday. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Customers Claim Jackson Hewitt Sold Tax Franchises to a Felon, Who Did it Again

SARASOTA, Fla. (CN) - Nine former customers claim Jackson Hewitt Tax Services sold franchises to a felon who proceeded to bilk them in Ponzi schemes. Jackson Hewitt negligently hired Daniel L. Prewett, who'd pleaded guilty to 12 counts of grand larceny and insurance fraud in 1987, according to two complaints in Sarasota County Court. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Retail sector hit hardest by targeted cyber attacks in October, report reveals

Targeted cyber attacks have increased significantly in the past five years, Symantec's latest MessageLabs Intelligence report has revealed. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

iPhone allows access to telephone app and address book despite passcode lock

A flaw in the security of Apple iPhones allows a third party to access the list of calls received and made, dial any number and access saved voice mail messages, photo galleries and the entire address book. The address book can also be used to send emails and picture and text messages. The telephone app can easily be launched on an iPhone which appears to be locked against third party access, without requiring the four-digit or alphanumeric pass code. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Fighting the Zombie Computer Outbreak

Computer hijacking programs are becoming more sophisticated and powerful each year. This makes it vital for companies to protect their networks from being hacked and converted into "zombie" systems that could severely undermine business. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Miami man sentenced for selling hospital records

MIAMI (AP) - A Miami man has been sentenced to 11 years in prison for participating in a scheme to sell stolen patient records to lawyers for injury claims. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Beware of e-Mail Scams about the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System

Consumers should be aware of a scam in which recipients receive an e-mail that claims to come from the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System. The e-mail states that tax payments made by the e-mail recipient through EFTPS have been rejected. The e-mail then directs recipients to a bogus website containing malicious software (malware) that infects the intended victim’s computer. To avoid the bogus website and malware, do not click on any links, open any attachments or reply to the sender for any e-mail you may receive that claims to come from EFTPS. ...read full article

October 26, 2010

Bulgarian plans plea in Oregon-Ohio ID theft case

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A Bulgarian man accused of stealing the name of an Ohio boy that he used to get a job with the Oregon Liquor Control Commission is expected to plead guilty in federal court next week. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Dewey restaurant worker charged in ID theft

DEWEY BEACH — A 32-year-old server in a Dewey Beach restaurant was charged with using a customer's credit card information to pay for tires and an oil change, state police said. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Authorities Warn Of Telephone Identity Thieves Posing As Police

DENVER -- The Colorado Attorney General's Office warns that identity thieves masquerading as police are targeting Colorado residents by phone. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Medical identity theft a more prevalent occurrence

When Joanna Saenz opened her mail one summer day several years ago, she got quite a shock. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Prosecutors: Welfare Director Stole Nearly $200K

ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. (CBS) - A former welfare services director from the northwest suburbs has been charged with stealing nearly $200,000 from a food pantry fund and other accounts just as she was to be released from prison on an unrelated charge. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Health reform's side effect: Scams

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Fraud experts say health insurance scams are on the rise as criminals quickly exploit consumers' confusion about how the new health care law changes their insurance coverage. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Burleson teacher learns hard lesson about marriage

BURLESON — He was smart, charming, and handsome... the kind of guy most girls fall for. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Sharing too much on Facebook could cost you

If you’re the type of person who tweets while on vacation or brags about your new toys on Facebook, you’d better post some photos of your guard dogs as well. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Guard investigating allegations of fraud

The National Guard is examining its procedures for detecting fraud in the wake of recent financial scandals at some state Guard organizations. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Information Commissioner to open new UK inquiry into Google Wi-Fi data harvesting

The UK is to open a fresh inquiry into Google's Wi-Fi data harvesting after the company admitted its Street View cars captured complete e-mails and passwords. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Zeus hackers may target corporate data

IDG News Service - Criminals who use the Zeus malware may be working on a new angle: corporate espionage. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Iranian Cyber Army running botnets, researchers say

IDG News Service - A group of malicious hackers who attacked Twitter and the Chinese search engine Baidu are also apparently running a for-rent botnet, according to new research. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

FTC Offers Legal Assistance Guide to Help Identity Theft Victims

The Federal Trade Commission has created a guide to help attorneys and victim advocates provide legal assistance to identity theft victims. ...read full article

October 25, 2010

Hacker hits Kaspersky website

Scammers who try to trick victims into downloading fake antivirus software can strike almost anywhere. On Sunday they hit the website of Kaspersky Lab, a well-known antivirus vendor. ...read full article

October 21, 2010

Man pleads guilty in human trafficking case

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A man from Uzbekistan who was accused of running a 14-state human trafficking ring in Kansas City has pleaded guilty to four charges under a plea agreement in which he will serve at least 10 years in federal prison. ...read full article

October 21, 2010

Teens learn dangers of digital world

MEDINA — A group of Medina County Career Center juniors walked into what their teacher described as a crime scene Wednesday. There wasn’t any evidence of violence or corruption, however. All they saw were a computer and desk sectioned off by police tape and flashing lights. ...read full article

October 21, 2010

Former Ace Pole employee pleads guilty in theft of more than $2 million

A Waycross woman has plead guilty relating to a scheme to steal more than $2 million from her former Blackshear employer, Ace Pole Company. ...read full article

October 21, 2010

Capitol Heights man sentenced to 4 years in prison for identity theft10/2

A Capitol Heights man was sentenced in U.S. District Court Monday to four years in prison for stealing wages from six members of the military and using their identities to open credit and debit card accounts. ...read full article

October 21, 2010

Medical-data breach said to be major

A computer flash drive containing the names, addresses, and personal health information of 280,000 people is missing - one of the largest recent security breaches of personal health data in the nation. ...read full article

October 21, 2010

Warning as identity theft on the rise in Shropshire

West Mercia Police chiefs today said fraud and identity theft was one of the fastest growing areas of crime. Police bosses said the nature of modern technology and communications meant that people could fall victim to criminals in the UK and in other parts of the world. ...read full article

October 21, 2010

Hundreds of victims affected around Texas

October 5, 2010

Massive iTunes phishing attack

Apple's popular iTunes platform has become a major target for hackers looking to steal credit card data from the service's millions of users. ...read full article

McKernan enters guilty plea

Former Whitpain Township Supervisor William McKernan III pleaded guilty to third-degree felony theft charges in Montgomery County Court Sept. 22. ...read full article

September 23, 2010

Man jailed for selling fake transit passes

A Burnaby man has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in jail

A Burnaby man has been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in jail for selling fake transit passes that could have cost Trans-Link $250,000 in lost revenue, TransLink police said Wednesday. ...read full article

...read full article

September 23, 2010

Security breached as former prostitute pilfers Einfeld police transcript

It took a former prostitute just a few days to pilfer sensitive computer files and find what she wanted: the nine-page police interview of the disgraced former judge Marcus Einfeld. ...read full article

September 23, 2010

Judge's laptop stolen from court

An Additional Sessions Judge became the victim of a theft when an unidentified crook escaped with his laptop from his cabin inside the Saket Court premises. The incident has raised security concerns as the perpetrator managed to escape from the judge's cabin even though CCTV cameras are installed in the vicinity. ...read full article

September 23, 2010

Thousands Of Personal Documents Dumped On O'Fallon Lawn

Thousands of abandoned documents, full of people's personal information, were in an O'Fallon, Missouri, driveway Tuesday, along with a mess that included a recliner, an old bedroom set, TV, and dinner table. ...read full article

September 15, 2010

Disbarred Attorney Gets Nearly 11 Years for Role in Ponzi Scheme

A judge has sentenced a disbarred attorney to nearly 11 years in prison for money laundering conspiracy in the $3.7 billion Ponzi scheme allegedly run by Minnesota businessman Tom Petters. ...read full article

IDG News Service - A bug introduced during a routing system update caused Gmail to turn some users into unintentional spammers by resending some messages multiple times to increasingly annoyed recipients including company bosses, clients, prospective employers and friends. ...read full article

Identity theft is a serious crime and a trend that is growing daily. In a busy day, you might write a check for groceries, rent a car with your credit card, use your debit card to buy gas and buy tickets online for an upcoming baseball game. You probably don’t think twice about any of those transactions. But an identity thief does. ...read full article

Angry state pensioners swamped Aon Consulting's phone lines Tuesday after opening their mailboxes and finding letters informing them that the benefits consultant had inadvertently posted their Social Security numbers and other personal information on the Web. ...read full article

September 1, 2010

White Paper: When Legitimate Sites Threaten Your Network

The Internet has matured from a network of connected dial-up modems into a valuable platform for information exchange, global commerce, and workplace productivity. ...read full article

September 1, 2010

Russian cops cuff 10 ransomware Trojan suspects

August 30, 2010

Nearly 600 data storage devices have been lost or stolen from the U.K.'s Ministry of Defense (MoD) in the past two years, according to figures released last week. ...read full article

August 25, 2010

Confidential files found in City Hall East sales items

The Atlanta Police Department has launched an investigation into how documents containing sensitive material were left in furniture sold during a liquidation sale of merchandise at City Hall East. ...read full article

August 25, 2010

Fine for Edinburgh data snooping policeman

A police officer who admitted snooping through the force computer and obtaining personal data about people has been fined £4,800.

...read full article

August 25, 2010

Floods in Pakistan: FTC Warns Consumers to Give Wisely

In the wake of the devastation caused by flooding in Pakistan and along the border between China and North Korea, the Federal Trade Commission warns consumers to choose carefully when considering urgent appeals for aid in the news, online, and at social networking sites. ...read full article

August 25, 2010

£2.28 million fine for Zurich Insurance's data loss

Zurich Insurance's UK branch has been fined £2.27 million by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) as punishment for losing the details of 46,000 customers. Zurich lost an unencrypted backup tape which contained the data while it was being transferred to a South African data storage centre in 2008. ...read full article

August 25, 2010

Kolkata gets its first cyber crime police station

The police station has been set up in the detective department building at the headquarters and people can directly lodge complaints of cyber crime here instead of going to local police stations

...read full article

August 25, 2010

DDoS botnet family discovered targeting scores of sites

A new family of bots is responsible for nearly 200 distributed denial-of-service attacks targeting websites in China, the United States, South Korea and Germany, according to researchers at security firm Arbor Networks ...read full article

August 25, 2010

Brad Pitt falls victim to celebrity death spam

A huge increase in potentially dangerous celebrity death spam has prompted security firm Symantec to warn users not to open morbid messages. ...read full article

August 25, 2010

Hackers bait Zeus botnet trap with dead celeb tales

Massive 'die-off' of celebrities in plane and car crashes tries to trick users into infecting themselves with malware ...read full article

UPDATED--There is a bug in Mozilla's flagship Firefox browser related to the way the browser handles obfuscated URLs in iFrames. However, a Mozilla official said the bug poses "very low" risk to users. ...read full article

August 18, 2010

Employees admit they would steal data when leaving a job

August 18, 2010

Facebook clickjacking scam tries to rip off users

If you happen to see a post on your friends' Facebook pages about "Top 10 Funny T-Shirt Fails ROFL", don't fall for it. ...read full article

August 18, 2010

DOJ Abandons Challenge of Sex Offender's Desire to Renounce Citizenship

For years, James Kaufman has wanted to renounce his citizenship. He may finally get his wish. ...read full article

August 18, 2010

Bratz-Barbie Fight Gets Ugly, With RICO, IP Theft Claims

In an explosive counterclaim filed in federal district court late Monday night, MGA Entertainment Inc. fired off a new round in the Barbie vs. Bratz doll war, accusing Mattel Inc. of carrying out an elaborate corporate espionage scheme in which Mattel employees lied about their identities in order to gain access to confidential information about MGA products and those of dozens of other toy industry rivals. ...read full article

August 18, 2010

Wiretap Act Violations Require Criminal Intent

(CN) - A son who used his iPhone to record a kitchen-table conversation about his dying mother's will did not violate the federal Wiretap Act, the 2nd Circuit ruled, because he had no criminal intent. ...read full article

August 18, 2010

Update: Android gaming app hides Trojan, security vendors warn

Tap Snake could be used by attackers to monitor movements of an Android system via GPS tracking; Google downplays risk

Computerworld - Security vendors Symantec and F-Secure have issued warnings that Tap Snake, a free gaming application for Google's Android OS, can be used to track and monitor a user's location. ...read full article

August 18, 2010

DOJ won't file charges in school Webcam spying case

IDG News Service - The U.S. Department of Justice won't file criminal charges against a Pennsylvania school district accused of spying on students via webcams in their computers. ...read full article

August 17, 2010

Data Security Breach Bill Calls for Strict Notification Requirements

A data breach bill filed August 5 requires entities that hold consumers' sensitive information to create a robust data compliance protection plan and holds them to strict breach notification requirements. ...read full article

4 Mass. hospitals investigating

Four Massachusetts community hospitals are investigating how thousands of patient health records, some containing Social Security numbers and sensitive medical diagnoses, ended up in a pile at a public dump. ...read full article

August 13, 2010

8 indicted in identity theft ring

A group of eight people, including some with ties to Northwest Indiana, were charged Thursday with running an identity theft ring that hit people in at least 21 states and took almost $200,000. ...read full article

August 13, 2010

Man, 30, admits stealing credit-card numbers from gas-station patrons in Union County

ROSELLE — A Union County man faces three years in prison after admitting his role in a scheme to steal other people's identities and engage in credit-card fraud, New Jersey Attorney General Paula T. Dow and Criminal Justice Director Stephen J. Taylor announced Thursday. ...read full article

August 13, 2010

College students have enough to juggle when it comes to school, work and their social life, and fighting consumer fraud often doesn’t make the list of priorities. Because college students are so susceptible to identity theft, Better Business Bureau recommends that they take seven simple steps to protect themselves on campus. ...read full article

August 11, 2010

FTC reminder: Skip cell phone numbers on 'Do Not Call' list

Federal regs already prohibit most telemarketing to mobile phones

Computerworld - Viral e-mails urging cell-phone users to hurry up and register with a government "Do Not Call" list to avoid advertising spam are still circulating five years after federal officials first told consumers they could basically ignore the message. ...read full article

August 11, 2010

N.Y. man is charged with stealing identities from pediatric cancer centers, hospitals

NEWARK — During the last decade, identity thieves have devised countless ways to steal their victims’ personal data and, ultimately, money. They have fished discarded bank statements from Dumpsters, hacked computer systems and duped the elderly. ...read full article

August 11, 2010

Unauthorized access at Littleton Regional Hospital results in firing

For the second time in as many years, Littleton Regional Hospital has reported a problem with employee snooping. On June 29, the hospital’s Chief Administrator Officer notified the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office that on May 21, a hospital employee reported that another employee was improperly accessing patient records. The hospital’s audit of their computer system confirmed that an employee had accessed patient records for purposes not related to their care. The unauthorized access of several patients’ records included their contact information, dates of birth, insurance information, physicians’ names, medical history and allergies, date, type, time, and nature of physician visits, and provider notes for the visit. ...read full article

August 11, 2010

South Korean police raid Google’s Seoul office

South Korean police have raided Google's office in Seoul as part of an investigation into the company's collection of private Wi-Fi data. ...read full article

Hackers offering tech support for malware they installed

Research shows bold move by malware makers

In a bold move some hackers are offering tech support and customer service for removing malware from their victims' computers, according to research by Kaspersky Lab. ...read full article

August 9, 2010

Alleged RBS WorldPay hack ringleader extradited to the U.S.

26-year old Estonian Sergei Tsurikov - one of the 3 alleged alleged masterminds behind the massive RBS WorldPay hack executed in November 2008 - has been extradited to the U.S. ...read full article

August 9, 2010

Feds Say Ponzi Man Targeted Elderly

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) - An Orange County man defrauded investors, many of them elderly, of more than $6.2 million in a Ponzi scheme, federal prosecutors say. Richard H. Nickles, 57, of Irvine, was to be arraigned today (Monday) on four counts of mail fraud and two counts of securities fraud. ...read full article

August 9, 2010

Update: Network admin Terry Childs gets 4-year sentence

A City of San Francisco administrator who refused to hand over administrative passwords to the city's network was sentenced to four years in state prison Friday. ...read full article

August 9, 2010

Stuxnet malware targets utility systems

Computerworld - Last month's disclosure of a sophisticated malware program targeting control system software from Siemens AG has renewed long-standing concerns about whether the U.S. power grid can withstand targeted cyberattacks. ...read full article

August 9, 2010

Senators worry for-profit schools cheat vets

A congressional report about possible abuses of federal financial aid by for-profit colleges and universities has prompted two key senators to ask whether service members and veterans are really getting a quality education when they use GI Bill education benefits and military tuition assistance. ...read full article

August 9, 2010

U.S. Marshal Imposter Indicted for Fooling TSA & Forcing a Woman Out of the Country

SAN DIEGO - A man suspected of posing as a federal marshal to take a woman from her Hemet home and put her on a plane to her native Philippines, claiming he was deporting her, was indicted today, along with his wife, by a federal grand jury in San Diego. ...read full article

August 5, 2010

Billionaire Donald Bren targeted in $1.4-million ID theft

A man who looks nothing like the Orange County real estate magnate allegedly opened accounts in Bren's name and deposited a tax-refund check stolen from Bren, a criminal complaint says. ...read full article

August 5, 2010

Rockland’s paychecks scattered from truck

ROCKLAND — Hundreds of current and former Rockland town employees have been put at risk for identity theft after canceled paychecks being sent to a recycling facility blew out of the truck transporting them. ...read full article

August 5, 2010

Six arrested for compromising 10,000 online bank accounts

Six people have been arrested on suspicion of stealing credit cards, personal information and banking details as part of a suspected online banking fraud. ...read full article

August 5, 2010

Hingham to inform 1,300 employees of compromised personal data

More than two weeks after a Hingham official inadvertently sent dozens of people a document containing the names and Social Security numbers of everyone who worked for the town last year, town officials said they will notify the 1,300 employees of the breach Wednesday afternoon through e-mail and first class mail. ...read full article

August 5, 2010

Study Points To Mobile Data Leak Risk

International IT governance body ISACA has released a study detailing the increasing potential for mobile devices to pose a significant threat to data loss. Pointing to information leakage over wireless and poorly secured wired networks, Securing Mobile Devices is intended as a wake-up call for companies who refuse to close backdoors leading to confidential enterprise information and intellectual property. ...read full article

August 5, 2010

Do We Have To Sneak Audit Site Hosts Now?

For retail IT directors, the end of American Eagle Outfitters’ 8-day E-Commerce collapse just marks the start of a new fear: that they’ll have to begin dispatching staffers to do sneak inspections of outsourcers. Will they need to burn precious staff time in unannounced audits, looking over the shoulders of service providers to make sure those techs are doing their jobs? ...read full article

August 5, 2010

Virus writer charged with destroying property

Japanese police have arrested a suspected virus writer over allegations he created and distributed an old-school virus that targeted freetards and destroyed data. ...read full article

August 4, 2010

Flood Victims' Personal Information Posted Online

Some of Nashville’s flood victims who were applying for property tax relief had their personal information posted on a Metro website. ...read full article

August 4, 2010

Zeus botnet plunders nearly 100,000 UK user credentials

Security firm Trusteer has uncovered a large Zeus version 2 botnet being used for financial fraud in the UK. ...read full article

August 4, 2010

DOE: Common security holes leave energy grid vulnerable

The U.S. is leaving its energy infrastructure open to cyberattacks by not performing basic security measures, such as regular patching and secure coding practices, according to a report prepared by the Department of Energy. ...read full article

August 4, 2010

Smooth-Talking Hackers Fool IT Giants

Hackers attending the Defcon security conference have proved that smooth-talking is the easiest way to obtain sensitive information from employees of some of the world's leading IT companies . ...read full article

August 4, 2010

Beware: Attackers Could Use New iPhone 4 Jailbreak Code to Carry Out Malicious Attacks

It seems like almost everyone I know has an iPhone, or at least wants one. Among iPhone users in the U.S.—where the phone’s operating system is locked and customers are limited to just one carrier—jailbreaking the devices is almost as popular. Jailbreaking Apple devices such as the iPhone essentially unlocks the operating system to allow root access, enabling users to make additional customizations to their phones. ...read full article

August 4, 2010

Hack uses Google Street View data to stalk its victims

A security researcher has devised an attack suitable for stalking and similarly creepy endeavors that uses JavaScript and geo location data from Google to pinpoint a victim's precise location. ...read full article

August 4, 2010

Man who doctored police report, insurance claim gets 30 days in jail

A West Orange, N.J., man, who altered the date of an incident on a police report as part of his filing of a false insurance claim, was sentenced to 30 days in a New Jersey county jail. ...read full article

August 4, 2010

Osaka man arrested for using computer virus to tamper with data

TOKYO — Tokyo police said Wednesday they have arrested a 27-year-old man in Osaka on a charge of using a computer virus to destroy stored data. Masato Nakatsuji is the first person in Japan to be charged with destroying property by tampering with data using a computer virus, they said. ...read full article

August 4, 2010

Blind Utica woman has phone scammer's number

When a customer service representative calls your home, it can be hard to decipher if the voice at the other end is legitimate, or a scam artist at work. ...read full article

August 3, 2010

Missing woman found alive in Kentucky; alleged captor at large

A 19-year-old Kentucky woman missing for two weeks has been found, and police are searching for a registered sex offender believed to be involved in her disappearance, authorities said Monday. ...read full article

August 3, 2010

2 Arrested in 'Massive Scheme'

The Wakulla County, Fla. Sheriff's Office has arrested two men for involvement in what's described as "a massive scheme" to defraud thousands of victims across the United States via identity theft. ...read full article

August 3, 2010

Data Breaches Hit 113 Health Care Organizations, Report Says

Of the 385 organizations hit with data breaches so far this year, 113 were in health care, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center's report for July 28. Just 39 breaches have been reported in banking and finance according to the ITRC. Experts cite a lack of compliance and improper data access by insiders as culprits. ...read full article

August 3, 2010

AP IMPACT: New ID theft targets kids' SS numbers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The latest form of identity theft doesn't depend on stealing your Social Security number. Now thieves are targeting your kid's number long before the little one even has a bank account. ...read full article

August 3, 2010

Identity theft, fraud ring hit apartment mailboxes: police

EDMONTON — Tax forms and hunting licences were among documents stolen from Edmonton apartments by an organized mail fraud ring, police allege. ...read full article

August 3, 2010

Cuyahoga County human services worker accused of identity theft

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Cuyahoga County Department of Health and Human Services worker is accused of stealing the identities of two co-workers, getting credit cards in their names and charging $13,000 in merchandise. ...read full article

August 3, 2010

Texas Firm Blames Bank for $50,000 Cyber Heist

A business telephone equipment company in Texas is trying to force its bank to settle a liability claim over an attack by organized cyber thieves last year that cost the company $50,000. ...read full article

August 2, 2010

GAO sting shows passport fraud remains a problem

Earlier this year, undercover investigators from the Government Accountability Office applied for and obtained three of seven passports they sought using common identity theft techniques. State Department officials issued five of the seven passports, but retrieved two from the mail before they were delivered -- after employees discovered the GAO sting. ...read full article

August 2, 2010

St. Al's missing data tapes with employees' personal info

BOISE, Idaho – Approximately 1,000 current and former Saint Alphonsus employees are being notified that a computer back-up tape containing their personal information has gone missing. ...read full article

August 2, 2010

Hacker shows cellphone tapping device

LAS VEGAS - A computer security researcher has built a device for just US$1500 that can intercept some kinds of cell phone calls and record everything that's said. ...read full article

August 2, 2010

Tenants can’t get answers on Guttenberg security breach

Residents of Guttenberg’s subsidized public housing projects are afraid their personal information could be misused now that the Guttenberg Housing Authority sent them letters this month saying a computer security breach allowed “an unauthorized individual” access to their personal files, including Social Security and credit card data. ...read full article

August 2, 2010

ID theft feared at Ont. government website

An NDP critic is blasting the Ontario government after it revealed there was a possible case of identity theft linked to its driver's licence address change website. ...read full article

August 2, 2010

Arizona drivers warned about gas-pump credit-card scam

The Arizona Department of Weights and Measures is warning consumers to take extra precautions to protect their identities because of an increase in the use of illicit credit-card readers at gas pumps. ...read full article

August 2, 2010

New laws on ID theft, business start today

Ever worry about having your identity stolen? Ever wondered if a business that claims to have local ties is telling the truth? Or had your vehicle impounded? Or tried to discourage your child from using tobacco? ...read full article

August 2, 2010

Deputies: Bank manager helps foil DeBary check-fraud scam; three arrested

Thanks in part to a vigilant bank manager, three were charged with fraud on Friday in what authorities in Volusia County are calling a "check fraud and identity theft caper." ...read full article

July 30, 2010

FTC Alleges $10 Million Fraud Scheme

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) says it has stopped a $10 million international scheme that was siphoning off small amounts from more than 1 million credit and debit card holders. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Seven Ways for College Students to Fight Identity Theft

College students have enough to juggle when it comes to school, work and their social life and fighting fraud often doesn’t make the list of priorities. Because college students are so susceptible to identity theft, Better Business Bureau recommends that they take seven simple steps to protect themselves on campus. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Tax collector may have used confidential files for business leads

VANCOUVER — A tax collector in B.C. used the Canada Revenue Agency's computers to look up the private tax files of hundreds of high-income individuals, apparently in the hopes of hitting them up for a business she ran on the side, according to internal government documents. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Tesco Bank fraud risk after data lost in post

Tesco Bank has lost the personal details of dozens of customers, leaving them exposed to the risk of fraud, after staff sent unprotected personal data in the post. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Ex-owner of Smithfield store admits to $1.7M fraud

A Smithfield woman pleaded guilty Thursday to three federal charges, admitting she stole the identities of customers from her farm equipment store to obtain more than 80 loans worth $1.7 million. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Lax document disposal leaves privacy in shreds

Imagine the anxiety of discovering that the information you divulged to one of the city's leading bankruptcy firms was not kept confidential. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Hotel guests still most at risk for identity theft

Computer hackers continue to steal hotel guests' credit-card data more than any other industry - and there's little consumers can do to protect themselves, Nicholas Percoco, an Internet expert who investigates corporate data breaches, tells Hotel Check-In. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Three charged with credit card fraud/ID theft ring at local stores

Three New Yorkers were arrested Thursday as they left a local store and charged with orchestrating a credit card fraud and identity theft ring that struck a series of Westport merchants. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Hackers probe the edges of secure Internet traffic to craft attacks

Researchers have uncovered new ways that criminals can spy on Internet users even if they're using secure connections to banks, online retailers or other sensitive Web sites. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Gulfport man accused of identity theft

GULFPORT, Miss. -- Gulfport police say a 29-year-old man has been accused of stealing his girlfriend's identity by obtaining a credit card in her name while she was deployed. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Computer with patient data stolen from Jefferson

A laptop computer with health and personal information on 21,000 patients was stolen from an office at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia in June. ...read full article

July 30, 2010

Two Charged in Conspiracy to Steal GM Trade Secrets

A federal Indictment was unsealed today in Detroit charging two individuals with conspiracy to possess trade secrets without authorization, unauthorized possession of trade secrets, and wire fraud. ...read full article

July 29, 2010

Hospital: Stolen laptop contains info for 21K patients

A day after a missing thumb drive created a possible security breach at Cooper University Hospital, Action News has learned another hospital is facing a breach of their own. ...read full article

July 29, 2010

Is The New Facebook Hack of 100 Million Users Really a Big Deal?

Whenever any of the major online sites get hacked it makes news headlines. But when the site hacked is Facebook, one of the biggest social media sites in the world with over 500 million users, people really do stop and take notice. ...read full article

July 29, 2010

Most Breaches Caused by Crime Gangs

Organized crime was responsible for 85 percent of all stolen data in 2009. And stolen credentials were the most common way to gain unauthorized access into organizations. ...read full article

July 29, 2010

Your child's identity being stolen? It's possible

When getting your kids enrolled in school or sports, you may not think twice before handing over their birth certificate or social security card. ...read full article

IDG News Service - Computers in Iran have been hardest hit by a dangerous computer worm that tries to steal information from industrial control systems. ...read full article

July 27, 2010

Private Information Found Near Public Street in Bryan

Mattresses, tires and bags of trash are often some of the first images that come to mind when you think of illegal dumping. But what about hundreds of pieces of private information? One Bryan resident says he came home to that and much more, to remnants of days gone by. ...read full article

July 22, 2010

Memphis cops use predictive analytics to fight crime

IDG News Service - It can sometimes be hard to pinpoint the return on investment in a particular technology, but police officials in Memphis say they are getting major results from using predictive analytics technology to fight crime. ...read full article

The Federal Trade Commission is warning 18 Internet websites offering free credit reports that they must clearly disclose that a free report is available under federal law. The FTC’s recently amended Free Credit Reports Rule, which took effect April 2, 2010, requires certain disclosures to help consumers distinguish between ads for free credit reports that often require them to buy credit monitoring or other services, and the federally mandated no-strings-attached credit reports available at AnnualCreditReport.com or 877-322-8228. ...read full article

Denver, CO - On June 30th, U.S. Marshals and 84 state, local and federal law enforcement agencies wrapped up a month-long sex offender sweep called Operation Shepherd 2010, conducting unannounced sex offender compliance checks and searching for fugitive sex offenders throughout the state of Colorado, resulting in 152 arrests and 2,840 compliance checks. ...read full article

Recent wave of university hacks nationwide exposes vestiges of former practice of using social security number as identifiers ...read full article

July 9, 2010

Advice For Travelers To Avoid Identity Theft When Traveling For Business Or Pleasure

Intersections and ITAC recommend the following safety tips for travelers

CHANTILLY, Va., July 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Intersections Inc. (Nasdaq: INTX), a leading provider of consumer and corporate identity theft risk management services, and ITAC, the Identity Theft Assistance Center, a national advocate for recognized identity theft prevention and recovery, advises leisure and business travelers to be aware of their increased exposure on the road and to learn how to protect themselves from becoming the next victim of identity theft. According to the U.S. Travel Association, 2.3 percent more vacation travel is expected this year than in 2009. ...read full article

July 8, 2010

GAO slams White House for failing to lead on cyber security

The lack of a cyber security R&D agenda puts the nation at risk, report says

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has so far failed to live up to its responsibility to coordinate a national cyber security R&D agenda, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released this week. ...read full article

July 8, 2010

Updates to HHS/OCR Site reveal seven more new breaches

HHS has added some more breach reports to its site. Most of them had not been reported in the mainstream media ...read full article

July 6, 2010

A large number of spam emails are currently prompting their recipients to verify an alleged Wikipedia account by clicking on a link that appears to point to the official Wikipedia site. The emails contain such texts as "Someone from the IP address 112.135.3.205 has registered the account 'iamjustsendingthisleter' with this e-mail address on the English Wikipedia", where the IP address corresponds to that of the spamming computer (bot), and the alleged Wikipedia account is the spam recipient's email account. ...read full article

July 1, 2010

Wellpoint security glitch exposes applicant data

WellPoint Inc (WLP.N) has warned some 470,000 people who applied for its health insurance that a website security glitch may have exposed their Social Security numbers and other sensitive data to the public. ...read full article

PHILADELPHIA (CN) - Robert Stinson Jr., a "felon and securities fraud recidivist" is running a Ponzi scam that has taken $16 million through his "purported hedge funds" including three "Life's Good" funds, the SEC says. "Stinson has been stealing money for his own personal use," often prying it out of victims' "self-directed IRAs," according to the federal complaint. ...read full article

An elderly Australian couple that had already lost over $440,000 to overseas scammers reportedly ignored warnings by police and lost another $60,000, according to a new report. ...read full article

Authorities added child pornography charges Thursday to allegations against a Blaine man accused of pilfering a neighbor's identity and e-mailing a death threat to Vice President Joe Biden. ...read full article

Confidential personal information stolen from Kent Police

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has found Kent Police in breach of the Data Protection Act. ...read full article

June 18, 2010

OPERATION STOLEN DREAMS

Hundreds Arrested in Mortgage Fraud Sweep

From industry insiders to straw buyers, nearly 500 people have been arrested in a nationwide mortgage fraud takedown that reflects the coordinated efforts of law enforcement to address the growing problem of crime in the housing industry. ...read full article

Jean-Pierre arrived on his South African holiday, withdrew some money from a cash machine, and hours later received a call from his bank to say that 300 euros had suddenly been charged to him. ...read full article

A California woman was sentenced today in federal court in Jackson to seven years in prison for identity theft and related fraud. ...read full article

June 7, 2010

Old Scams, New Wineskins

A few decades ago, mass marketing fraud—the kind that exploits mass communication techniques like bulk mail or telemarketing—was relatively low-tech and mostly a regional crime problem targeting victims nearby. ...read full article

May 26, 2010

Loma Linda hospital patients' personal information stolen

A thief has stolen personal information regarding more than 500 surgical patients of Loma Linda University Medical Center, according to hospital officials. ...read full article

May 26, 2010

Facebook to simplify privacy controls Wednesday

Heeding widespread concerns about how much of its users' personal data it shares on the web, Facebook said it will begin implementing simpler privacy settings on Wednesday. ...read full article

DALLAS — A Colorado congressman wants Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to provide answers on how a Texas man apparently tricked the Army into allowing him to enter the reserves as a noncommissioned officer. ...read full article

May 25, 2010

Google saves, secures Wi-Fi snooping data

But resists more data demands by class-action lawsuit lawyers

Computerworld - Google said that it has secured the data it obtained through its Street View Wi-Fi snooping, but will fight a class-action lawsuit's demand that it turn over more information, court documents showed today. ...read full article

May 25, 2010

Disbarment Urged for Lawyer Who Billed Fake Clients

The New Jersey Disciplinary Review Board is recommending disbarment for a lawyer who manufactured fake billings for nonexistent clients, first at Fox Rothschild and then at Margolis Edelstein. ...read full article

May 25, 2010

Queen's speech: Cuts start with ID cards, but broadband still a priority

The Queen has named high-speed broadband roll out and the abolition of the national ID cards project as priorities for the coalition government in the coming 18 months. ...read full article

New Threat For Wireless Networks: Typhoid Adware

Some users could become "carriers," unknowingly passing infections to others, university researchers say

There's a potential threat lurking in your Internet cafe, say University of Calgary computer science researchers: Typhoid adware. ...read full article

OCONEE COUNTY, S.C. -- A laptop containing information on more than 600 patients at an Oconee County physicians’ practice was stolen a week ago -- and now patients are being warned about the theft. ...read full article

May 19, 2010

Students to see photos snapped in Pa. school 'spying' case

Judge lets students view the nearly 58,000 images before parents get their chance

Firm allegedly failed to properly dispose of consumers' personal information

Maryland's consumer protection division announced Monday that it reached a $20,000 settlement with payment processor MAP, LLC for allegedly failing to properly dispose of consumers' personal information. ...read full article

May 12, 2010

Goldman Sachs Sued For Illegal Database Access

Employees at Goldman allegedly used misappropriated credentials to grab intellectual property from market intelligence service's database ...read full article

ALBANY, N.Y. (CN) - A Troy, N.Y. man took $6.5 million from senior citizens by promising "guaranteed" annual returns of more than 9 percent, and many of his victims are still unaware that they've been ripped off, the SEC claims in Federal Court. ...read full article

May 5, 2010

N.Y. bomb plot highlights limitations of data mining

May 4, 2010

Data breach reports now posted online

Most health care information leaks have involved electronic systems, but some were paper-based. ...read full article

ANOTHER PONZI CASE

And a Warning for Investors

He was living the high life—taking up residence in a Miami Beach mansion worth more than $5 million, cruising around in a million-dollar yacht and his leased Mercedes-Benz, shelling out more than $400,000 for floor seats at Miami Heat basketball games, and donating thousands of dollars to the athletic program of a local university (the school was so appreciative it named a student athlete lounge after him). ...read full article

April 30, 2010

U.S. Naval Academy Triumphs in 10th Annual Cyber Defense Exercise

DUBLIN, Ohio — A nurse was out of a job on Wednesday, after she was under criminal investigation, accused of stealing a patient's identity and using it to obtain narcotics. ...read full article

April 29, 2010

The Medical Center at Bowling Green Notifies Patients of Breach of Protected Health Information

The Medical Center is currently notifying 5,418 patients of a breach of personal protected health information. The breach involves the theft of computer equipment from The Medical Center’s Mammography Suite containing information on patients who underwent bone density testing at The Medical Center between 1997 and 2009. We have no reason at this point to believe the device was stolen for the information on it or that any personal information has been released or used. ...read full article

April 29, 2010

Man indicted in probe of UMC privacy leak

A man was indicted today by a federal grand jury in an alleged conspiracy to pay a University Medical Center employee for private information about traffic accident victims that was used to drum up clients. ...read full article

April 29, 2010

FTC Tells Congress It Is Reviewing Whether Technology Changes Call for Revisions to the Agency's Rule Protecting Kids' Online Privacy

The Federal Trade Commission today said that the rapid-fire pace of technological change, including an explosion in children’s use of mobile devices and interactive gaming, has led the agency to accelerate its review of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA Rule) to make sure that it is still adequately protecting children’s privacy. Although the FTC reviews most of its rules every 10 years, the COPPA Rule is being reviewed only five years after its last review, in 2005. ...read full article

April 29, 2010

The cost of cybercrime to businesses has doubled to more than £10bn over the past two years, research to be released today will reveal. ...read full article

April 27, 2010

Data breach at Tennessee Blues could affect 1 million patients

A review by the insurer shows that an increasing number of plan members might face identity theft after hard drives were stolen in 2009. ...read full article

April 27, 2010

Hackers target iPad owners with bogus update

Dupe Windows users into downloading backdoor Trojan; Mac owners not at risk

Computerworld - Hackers are targeting iPad users with bogus update messages that dupe them into downloading malicious code onto their Windows PCs, a security researcher said today. ...read full article

April 27, 2010

Founders Skimmed $54M, Shareholder Says

LOS ANGELES (CN) - The founders of start-up media company Spot Runner skimmed $54 million from the floundering company while selling their own shares at inflated prices to new investors, according to a derivative complaint in Superior Court. ...read full article

April 27, 2010

Enders Broke Privacy Rules

THE BBC has been rapped after a mum was plagued by obscene calls and texts after her mobile phone number was shown on EastEnders. ...read full article

Updated Splunk, a kind of Google for business technology that boasts it can help reinforce your security, has exposed the details of major customers to hackers following a web site slip up. ...read full article

April 27, 2010

Botnet-driven click fraud attacks pilfering millions from advertisers

The clever hacking of online advertisements has quietly grown into a multi-million dollar criminal industry showing no signs of slowing. ...read full article

April 27, 2010

Cops raid Gizmodo editor's home over lost iPhone, raise questions of legal search upon journalist

Police raided the home of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen late Friday, busting down the door to serve a search warrant that suggests that the site’s role in obtaining an iPhone prototype is being investigated as a felony, according to a post and documents published on the Gizmodo website. ...read full article

April 22, 2010

Telstra confirms customer data breach

Telstra has patched a data breach on its business website that had the potential to reveal personal information, such as date of birth, of 700 customers. ...read full article

Germany hung onto its dubious title as Europe’s leader in spreading computer viruses in 2009, though its share of malicious activity in the region dropped slightly, a survey has found. ...read full article

April 19, 2010

Police called after 9-year-old steals password

IDG News Service - A few weeks ago, officials at Fairfax County Public Schools thought they had a hacker on their hands. ...read full article

April 19, 2010

FBI lists the key roles in cybercrime enterprises

Computerworld - Criminal hacker organizations are operating with increasing corporate-like efficiency and specialization, according to Steven Chabinsky, deputy assistant director in the FBI's cyber division. ...read full article

Targeted cyberattacks like the one that accessed Google's internal network earlier this year are testing enterprise security models in new ways, and they pose a more immediate threat to sensitive corporate data and bank accounts. ...read full article

April 19, 2010

Network Solutions sites hacked again

Newest wave infects hosted sites, sends users to Ukrainian attack server

Computerworld - A week after Web hosting company Network Solutions dealt with a large-scale infection of WordPress-driven blogs, the company acknowledged that other sites it hosts have been compromised. ...read full article

April 13, 2010

Update: Malicious Facebook ad redirected to fake antivirus software

IDG News Service - A malicious advertisement has been found within an application for Facebook that redirected users to fake antivirus software, according to a security researcher. ...read full article

April 13, 2010

Windows 7 SP1 leaks to pirate sites

March build of service pack hits BitTorrent, pirates download

Computerworld - Pirated copies of Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) leaked to the Internet last week, searches at several BitTorrent sites show. ...read full article

April 13, 2010

Teen Sues Mom for Hacking Facebook Account

Suing your parents isn't just for celebrities anymore--a 16-year-old Arkansas boy is suing his mother for hacking into his Facebook account and allegedly posting slanderous remarks. ...read full article

April 13, 2010

Nifty Java Bug Could Lead to Attack

A Google researcher has published details of a Java virtual machine bug that could be used to run unauthorized programs on a computer. ...read full article

April 13, 2010

FTC Sends Out More Redress Checks to Victims of the J.K. Publications Credit Card Fraud

Beginning April 9, the FTC, through its claims administrator, will be mailing more than 145,000 checks totaling over $4 million to consumers identified as victims of an illegal credit card billing scam operated by J.K. Publications and other defendants. The operators of this scam made unauthorized charges on consumers’ credit and debit cards for purported Internet services. Information about the case can be found here: http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/9823616.shtm. ...read full article

Hackers use social networking sites to create unbreakable command and control system

Security researchers have discovered a complex ecosystem of cyber espionage which they claim systematically compromised computer networks in India, the Offices of the Dalai Lama, the United Nations and several other countries. ...read full article

April 7, 2010

The Tories will veto Clauses 1, 29 and 43 of the controversial Digital Economy Bill when it comes to a third reading in the House of Commons later today, Wednesday 7 April. ...read full article

April 6, 2010

FTC Issues 2010 Fair Debt Collection Practices Report to Congress

At a time when many consumers are facing debt problems, the Federal Trade Commission has issued its annual report detailing the steps the agency has taken to protect consumers from unfair, deceptive, and abusive debt collection practices and educate the public on the subject. ...read full article

IDG News Service - BOSTON -- As his parents and sister silently wept, hacker mastermind Albert Gonzalez was sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court to two concurrent 20-year stints in prison for his role in what prosecutors called the "unparalleled" theft of millions of credit and debit card numbers from major U.S. retailers. ...read full article

March 26, 2010

Suspected Twitter infiltrator: 'I'm a nice hacker'

PARIS – He's unemployed and isn't much of a computer expert. The Frenchman accused of infiltrating Twitter and peeping at the accounts of President Barack Obama and singers Britney Spears and Lily Allen says he wanted to reveal just how vulnerable online data systems are to break-ins - and he says he didn't mean any harm. ...read full article

March 24, 2010

Law enforcement lobbies hard for ICANN changes

U.S. and U.K. law enforcement officials are trying to marshal support for changes that would make it more difficult for criminals to register domain names under false details. ...read full article

According to Liz Latt and Beth Fortune in Public Affairs, a professor's desktop computer, containing the names and social security numbers of 7,174 current and former students, was stolen some time during the weekend of Feb. 6. ...read full article

March 18, 2010

Madoff Computer Programmers Charged

MANHATTAN (CN) - Two computer programmers who worked for Bernie Madoff were charged on Wednesday with conspiracy and falsifying records, federal prosecutors said. Jerome O'Hara and George Perez are charged with maintaining programs that generated bogus records that fooled the SEC. ...read full article

March 18, 2010

Child porn blocked by new 'fingerprint' system

Organisations are being offered an unusual new anti-child porn system that can identify and block real, individual images by comparing them to one of the world's largest databases of such pictures. ...read full article

CALGARY - Thousands of patients at a University of Calgary clinic are being warned their personal health information could have been compromised after viruses infected a medical computer. ...read full article

March 18, 2010

Madoff Beaten in Prison

Ponzi Schemer Was Assaulted by Another Inmate in December; Officials Deny Incident

Bernard Madoff, who is serving a 150-year sentence in North Carolina for running a fraud scheme that cost investors billions of dollars, was physically assaulted by another inmate in December, according to three people familiar with the matter. ...read full article

March 18, 2010

'Jihad Jane' suspect pleads not guilty

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- The American woman who authorities say called herself "Jihad Jane" pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that she tried to help terrorists and kill someone in another country. ...read full article

March 17, 2010

State agency’s internal data breached

MIAMI — A Florida Department of Law Enforcement analyst has been suspended for allegedly using critical law-enforcement databases to look up private information about her co-workers, their families and even at least one private citizen. ...read full article

Delta Airlines issued a warning to its customers Monday warning about fraudulent emails sent out within the last 24 hours. ...read full article

March 16, 2010

Bacteria Trail Betrays Identity Of Computer Users

Raising new privacy concerns, research shows that the DNA signatures of bacteria transferred to objects by human touch can be used for identification.

...read full article

March 16, 2010

Feds arrest their first bank bailout fraud suspect

Federal authorities on Monday charged the former chief executive of a New York bank with being the first suspect to try and rip off taxpayer funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. ...read full article

24 people may have had their personal information compromised following the cyber attack of one computer in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, authorities said. ...read full article

A South Philadelphia man pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to stealing his brother's identity in connection with a scheme to fleece the Veterans Administration for free medical benefits at a methadone clinic. ...read full article

March 9, 2010

High School Reunion Ruin: Classmates.com Sued Over Opt-Out Privacy Setting Change

Two members of networking site Classmates.com have sued the service for allegedly violating their privacy by revising the service to make members' information more accessible to the Web at large. ...read full article

March 9, 2010

Opera confirms critical browser bug

Opera Software yesterday confirmed a critical vulnerability in its Windows desktop browser, and said it is working on a patch. ...read full article

March 9, 2010

FDIC: Hackers took more than $120M in three months

Ongoing computer scams targeting small businesses cost U.S. companies $25 million in the third quarter of 2009, according to the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. ...read full article

March 9, 2010

Police: Man Eyed in 2nd Calif. Teen Murder

A registered sex offender charged with murdering a teen girl last month is a focus of the investigation into the death of a 14-year-old girl whose remains were found more than a year after she disappeared near her school, police said Monday. ...read full article

The Koobface worm is a case study of how swiftly cybercriminals react to emerging trends. Koobface first appeared in the fall of 2008 just as social networks were getting hot. Its creators initially sent Facebook users friendly messages asking them to click on a link to see a video. ...read full article

March 5, 2010

Cyber Threats Pit Privacy Versus Security

Security experts are torn between just how far the government and the private sector should go to protect critical data from cyber criminals without violating individual rights. ...read full article

March 5, 2010

ICO urges data protection

A report urging organisations to put a value on personal information and invest in privacy protection was released by the Information Commissioner's Office this week. ...read full article

March 5, 2010

Prosecutors: ID theft case takes deadly turn

New York (CNN) -- An identity theft case involving a Brooklyn couple has taken a more serious turn, according to federal prosecutors. ...read full article

March 4, 2010

DoD to reduce use of Social Security numbers

The Defense Department is preparing to launch a military wide effort to reduce the use of Social Security numbers to lower the chances of identity theft for military and civilian workers and contractors. ...read full article

March 4, 2010

Tracing attack source key to cybersecurity strategy, Chertoff says

Former DHS chief talks of difficulties in creating a national deterrence plan

Computerworld - SAN FRANCISCO -- The difficult task of identifying the true sources of cyber attacks remains one of the biggest challenges in the development of a national cybersecurity strategy, former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told Computerworld in an interview at the RSA Security conference here today. ...read full article

March 4, 2010

Maine Bill Would Restrict Birth, Marriage Records

AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) ? Maine lawmakers heard arguments Wednesday for a bill that would restrict the release of birth and marriage records as a way to combat fraud and identity theft. ...read full article

March 4, 2010

Israeli raid called off after Facebook slip

JERUSALEM — The Israeli military says a planned raid on a West Bank village was called off after an Israeli soldier disclosed its details online. ...read full article

March 4, 2010

Tweet this: Social network security is risky business

Panel discussions at RSA focus on a more social attack vector

Computerworld - SAN FRANCISCO -- Businesses are still trying to figure out what to make of social networking. The knee-jerk impulse at some companies is to ban its use because it's insecure and seen as unproductive, while at others it's viewed as, in fact, the way a lot of people now get work done. ...read full article

March 4, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO--Homeland Security and the National Security Agency may be taking a closer look at Internet communications in the future. ...read full article

March 4, 2010

RSA authentication weakness discovered

The most common digital security technique used to protect both media copyright and Internet communications has a major weakness, University of Michigan computer scientists have discovered. ...read full article

March 4, 2010

Monster botnet held 800,000 people's details

Fourth zombie admin could be in South America

The Mariposa botnet had the power to dwarf Georgia and Estonia cyberattacks if it had been used to launch denial of service attacks, say Spanish police. ...read full article

March 4, 2010

eBay scammer gets four years

The leader of a UK-based gang who made millions selling counterfeit luxury golf kit and other knock-off goods through auction site eBay has been jailed for four years. ...read full article

Think of the worst thing you have ever swallowed. Haggis, perhaps? Maybe pig's ear? Arguments you have swallowed don't count. You see, I want to get you into the appropriate mood for the story of Florin Necula. Necula seems to have gotten himself into a bothersome situation with the upstanding members of our Secret Service. ...read full article

IDG News Service - A break-in one evening last October at a shopping mall in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is proving expensive for BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee. ...read full article

March 2, 2010

Four indicted for $25M online ticket fraud scheme

Wiseguy Tickets allegedly hacks its way to Springsteen, Rose Bowl, Broadway tickets

Computerworld - Four men have been indicted for illegally buying and reselling tickets to major concerts, a Rose Bowl game and tapings of the television show Dancing with the Stars. ...read full article

March 2, 2010

Microsoft: Don't Press F1 Key in Windows XP

Microsoft told Windows XP users today not to press the F1 key when prompted by a Web site, as part of its reaction to an unpatched vulnerability that hackers could exploit to hijack PCs running Internet Explorer (IE). ...read full article

March 2, 2010

Court rules anti-terror data storage illegal

In a victory for privacy advocates, Germany’s highest court on Tuesday knocked down an anti-terrorism law that allows authorities to store all phone and internet records of private citizens. ...read full article

Imperva report warns that hackers have become industrialized and represent an exponentially increased threat to individuals, organizations and government

REDWOOD SHORES, CALIF., "March 1, 2010" Imperva, the data security leader, today released a new report warning that hackers have become industrialized and represent an exponentially increased threat to individuals, organizations and Government. Imperva's report says the emerging industrialization of hacking parallels the way in which the 19th century revolution advanced methods and accelerated assembly from single to mass production. The result is that today's cybercrime industry has transformed and automated itself to improve efficiency, scalability and profitability. ...read full article

March 2, 2010

One quarter of Germans fine with microchip skin implant

It sounds like something from a creepy science-fiction film, but a poll published on Monday showed one in four Germans would be happy to have a microchip implanted in their body if they derived concrete benefits from it. ...read full article

February 23, 2010

Phishers target Blogger users

Users of Google's Blogger, a free blog publishing tool, are the targets of the latest phishing email campaign. ...read full article

Symantec's 2010 State of Enterprise Security finds three quarters of all enterprises have been hit by a cyber attack, and security is now more pressing than any other concern ...read full article

February 22, 2010

IT pros divided about security of virtualization, cloud computing

Survey reveals one-third of enterprise security managers believe the technologies make security 'harder,' while one-third say it was 'easier' ...read full article

February 22, 2010

Why it is all too easy to become a cybercriminal

The disclosure of Operation Aurora last month and the outing of the Kneber botnet gang’s stolen booty this week have much in common. ...read full article

'Panda' Exploit Offers Rare Inside Look at China's Cybercrime Networks

WUHAN, China—Some of today's biggest cybersecurity worries trace their roots to this central Chinese city, where a hacker with a junior high school education slapped cartoon pandas onto millions of computers to hide a destructive spy program. ...read full article

February 22, 2010

Widespread Data Breaches Uncovered by FTC Probe

FTC Warns of Improper Release of Sensitive Consumer Data on P2P File-Sharing Networks

The Federal Trade Commission has notified almost 100 organizations that personal information, including sensitive data about customers and/or employees, has been shared from the organizations’ computer networks and is available on peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks to any users of those networks, who could use it to commit identity theft or fraud. The agency also has opened non-public investigations of other companies whose customer or employee information has been exposed on P2P networks. To help businesses manage the security risks presented by file-sharing software, the FTC is releasing new education materials that present the risks and recommend ways to manage them. ...read full article

February 19, 2010

Czech Researchers Say 'Chuck Norris' Kicks Bots

Emerging botnet could redirect users to data-stealing sites, researchers say

Czech security experts say they have uncovered a global botnet that may be redirecting Web surfers to other sites for the purpose of stealing their data. ...read full article

February 19, 2010

White Collar Defendant Sentenced to 309 Years in Prison

BATON ROUGE—U.S. Attorney David R. Dugas announced today that Chief U.S. District Judge Ralph E. Tyson sentenced Robert Thompson, also known as John Lawson, age 43, of Zachary, La., to a term of 309 years in prison. Thompson, the leader of a massive identity theft and bribery scheme, was sentenced based on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, mail fraud, bank fraud, computer fraud, access device fraud, aggravated identity theft, money laundering, and obstruction of justice. This is the longest sentence of any white collar offender in the history of the Middle District of Louisiana. ...read full article

February 19, 2010

FTC and States Take Aim at 9 Alleged Job Scam Artists

The Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general took another swipe this week at scams that target unemployed people, jointly or separately filing nine new lawsuits against alleged "con artists" who charge victims for bogus job leads. ...read full article

February 19, 2010

Thousands Of Organizations Worldwide Hit By Widespread Malware Attack

Botnet bearing the Zeus Trojan infected 75,000 systems worldwide in 2,500 enterprises, government agencies

Yet another sign that the Zeus Trojan isn't just for stealing consumer online banking credentials anymore: Some 2,500 enterprises and government agencies worldwide have been infiltrated by a botnet spreading the pervasive piece of malware, a security firm revealed today. ...read full article

February 19, 2010

35 countries could be monitored for piracy

Copyright holders in the US have called for 35 countries to be put on a watch list for piracy and counterfeit activities and have singled out 10 for priority action. ...read full article

February 19, 2010

Police: Duke Lacrosse Players' Accuser Assaulted Boyfriend

The woman who falsely accused three Duke University lacrosse players of rape nearly four years ago has been charged with attempted murder, arson and other counts after a fight with her boyfriend, police said. ...read full article

February 19, 2010

Busted, Grilled by FBI, for Arabic-English Flashcards, Collegian Says

PHILADELPHIA (CN) - A Pomona College student says he was arrested, handcuffed and "abusively interrogated" at Philadelphia International Airport "solely because he passed through an airport screening checkpoint with a set of Arabic-English flashcards and a book critical of American foreign policy." Plaintiff Nicholas George, 22, of Pennsylvania, is a senior majoring in Middle Eastern Studies at the well-regarded California college. ...read full article

IDG News Service - Indian outsourcer Wipro said Wednesday it is investigating the embezzlement of $4 million from the company after an employee allegedly obtained a colleague's online password. ...read full article

ST. PETERSBURG — A St. Petersburg man has been charged with stealing customers' credit card numbers from a marketing company he worked for to buy nearly $30,000 in dinners, limos and other luxuries. ...read full article

IDG News Service - A former security researcher turned criminal hacker has been sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for hacking into financial institutions and stealing credit card account numbers. ...read full article

February 15, 2010

Microsoft says malware causing blue screen crashes

A sneaky rootkit is blamed for a problem that has sidelined some XP users following patches

A hard-to-detect rootkit may be causing Windows XP systems to crash following Microsoft's latest security updates. ...read full article

February 15, 2010

Bail Set at $10 Million for Madoff's Former Finance Chief

Bail was set at $10 million Thursday for jailed financier Bernard Madoff's former finance chief, who has remained imprisoned since he pleaded guilty six months ago and cooperated with the government's investigation. ...read full article

Homeless Man Using Papers With Credit Card And Social Security Numbers As A Bed

February 8, 2010

China: Large hacker training Web site shut down

Washington (CNN) -- Police in China shut down what officials think was the largest training Web site for computer hackers, local media said. ...read full article

February 3, 2010

Underscoring a little-known web vulnerability, hackers are exploiting a weakness in the Mozilla Firefox browser to wreak havoc on Freenode and other networks that cater to users of internet relay chat. ...read full article

February 1, 2010

January 29, 2010

A leading technology blog, TechCrunch, was temporarily commandeered by a hacker who managed to place a message that linked to a site offering adult material. ...read full article

January 28, 2010

4 Arrested In Alleged Plot To Wiretap Senator's Office

A conservative activist who posed as a pimp to target the community-organizing group ACORN and the son of a federal prosecutor were among four people arrested by the FBI and accused of trying to interfere with phones at Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu's office. ...read full article

January 28, 2010

Anatomy Of A Targeted, Persistent Attack

New report provides an inside look at real attacks that infiltrated, camped out, and stole intellectual property and proprietary information -- and their links to China

A new report published today sheds light on the steps ultra-sophisticated attackers take to gain a foothold inside governments and company networks and remain entrenched in order to steal intellectual property and other data. The bad news is these attacks -- including the recent ones on Google, Adobe, and other companies -- almost always are successful and undetectable until it's too late. ...read full article

January 28, 2010

Cost of UK data breaches up 7% in 2009

he cost of UK data breaches has increased 7% in the past year and 36% in the past two years, the latest annual study by the Ponemon Institute has revealed. ...read full article

January 28, 2010

Congressional Web sites hacked near Obama speech

IDG News Service - More than two dozen Congressional Web sites have been defaced by the Red Eye Crew, a group known for its regular attacks on Web sites. ...read full article

January 21, 2010

FBI Broke Privacy Laws, Says Justice Department Probe

The FBI repeatedly broke the law between April 2003 and November 2006 in its efforts to monitor telecommunications in line with counterterrorism objectives, a Justice Department investigation has found. A report released Wednesday by the Department's Inspector General, Glenn Fine, reveals that three major telecom companies — whose identities remain classified — contracted out six of their employees to the FBI, and provided the government with unchecked access to phone records without legal authority. Those employees worked in FBI office space with government investigators, and responded to more than 700 informal requests for information from the FBI, sometimes passed on verbally or on post-its. The employees gave agents access to some 3,500 telephone numbers, including call records from reporters, "calling circles" of individual suspects and others, the report says. ...read full article

Some software is producing improper medication dosages, Grassley says

Computerworld - The ranking member of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee this week asked 31 hospitals and health-care systems to provide feedback on problems with computer systems associated with the government's efforts to incent the rollout of electronic health records (EHR). ...read full article

January 21, 2010

RockYou hack reveals easy-to-crack passwords

Analysis of the 32 million passwords recently exposed in the breach of social media application developer RockYou last month provides further proof that consumers routinely use easy to guess login credentials. ...read full article

January 21, 2010

80% of gov't Web sites miss DNS security deadline

Network World - Most U.S. federal agencies -- including the Department of Homeland Security -- have failed meet a Dec. 31, 2009, deadline to deploy new authentication mechanisms on their Web sites that would prevent hackers from hijacking Web traffic and redirecting it to bogus sites. ...read full article

January 20, 2010

Hundreds of Network Solutions Sites Hacked

Web site domain registrar and hosting provider Network Solutions acknowledged Tuesday that hackers had broken into its servers and defaced hundreds of customer Web sites. ...read full article

January 20, 2010

Three lessons for businesses from the Google attack

Companies need to reevaluate security to handle advanced cyberattacks

The cyberattacks against Google and more than 30 other technology companies by adversaries operating out of China highlights what some call the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) confronting a growing number of U.S commercial entities. ...read full article

January 19, 2010

Hackers are defeating tough authentication, Gartner warns

Security measures such as the use of one-time passwords and phone-based user authentication -- considered among the most robust forms of IT defenses -- are no longer enough to protect online banking systems against fraud, a Gartner Inc. report warns. ...read full article

January 19, 2010

Health Net's missing drive could cost it millions

Connecticut HIPAA lawsuit over lost records

US healthcare corporation Health Net kept quiet for 6 months about a lost disk drive, exposing 1.5 million of its members to identity theft. It is now being sued. ...read full article

January 19, 2010

Avondale police need the public's help finding two burglars who went on a post-Christmas shopping spree using stolen credit cards. ...read full article

January 15, 2010

Tax season brings more sophisticated scams

It's tax season, and that means IRS-related phishing scams are ramping up. ...read full article

January 15, 2010

Soon, security system for touch screens to ward off shoulder surfers

New touch screen phones may soon be equipped with a system to stop 'shoulder surfers' from spying your secret pass codes, thanks to computer scientist who developed the technology. ...read full article

January 15, 2010

Houston woman gets prison for $1M computer fraud

A Houston woman who worked for a New Orleans mortgage lender has been sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for stealing more than $1 million from the company. ...read full article

January 15, 2010

Conficker worm still spreading, Akamai says

Russia and Brazil replaced China and the U.S. as the top two sources of attack traffic, according to Akamai's State of the Internet report

...read full article

January 15, 2010

Haiti earthquake themed blackhat SEO campaigns serving scareware

Cybercriminals quickly mobilized following the news of a massive earthquake that hit Haiti on Tuesday, by introducing several hundred compromised domains embedded with bogus blackhat seo (search engine optimization) content related to Red Cross donations and general Haiti earthquake relief information. ...read full article

January 15, 2010

Woman reports identity theft

WINNECONNE – A 57-year-old Winneconne woman reported to police on Jan. 6 that someone had used her identity to purchase energy from a Texas company. ...read full article

January 15, 2010

Romanian faces five years in prison for phishing scheme

A Romanian national pleaded guilty on Thursday to a charge related to a phishing operation that sought to defraud customers of banks such as Citibank and Wells Fargo, and of Web sites such as eBay. ...read full article

January 7, 2010

China Helped State-Backed Companies Steal Computer Code, U.S. Firm Says

LOS ANGELES (CN) - In "one of the largest cases of software piracy in history," the Chinese government helped two state-backed companies steal encrypted data from an Internet content-filtering program developed by a family-owned U.S. company and made more than $2 billion selling it with the help of manufacturing giants such as Sony and Toshiba, who "chose to turn a blind eye," Santa Barbara-based Solid Oak Software claims in Federal Court. China uses the program to spy on its people, according to the complaint. ...read full article

January 7, 2010

Hacker pilfers browser GPS location via router attack

If you're surfing the web from a wireless router supplied by some of the biggest device makers, there's a chance Samy Kamkar can identify your geographic location. ...read full article

January 7, 2010

BENSALEM, Pa. — Four Florida men have been charged with running a multistate identity theft operation out of a suburban Philadelphia motel room. ...read full article

January 6, 2010

New Attack Locates Web Users Via XSS, Google Data

The security researcher who created the MySpace XSS worm in 2005 has developed a technique that enables an attacker to accurately locate a Web user with GPS coordinates, without using IP-based geolocation. ...read full article

January 6, 2010

Kingston flash drives suffer password flaw

Kingston Technology has asked customers to return certain models of its DataTraveler secure flash drives for an update, following the discovery of a flaw in the memory sticks. ...read full article

January 6, 2010

Willimantic Resident Who Created Fake Identity is Sentenced

Nora R. Dannehy, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that AMJAD IQBAL, also known as “Asif Ali,” 38, a citizen of Pakistan lawfully residing in the United States in Willimantic, Connecticut, was sentenced today by Senior United States District Judge Peter C. Dorsey in New Haven to two years of probation. On September 15, 2009, IQBAL pleaded guilty to one count of Social Security fraud. ...read full article

Over on FourthAmendment.com, John Wesley Hall Jr. alerts us to an Ohio case involving GPS and the Fourth Amendment. In State v. Dalton, 2009 Ohio 6910, the court remanded the case because the lower court had not addressed Dalton’s claim that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his car’s wiring system and that the placement of a GPS device in his car’s wiring system by police was unconstitutional. ...read full article

Lynn couple accused in airport ID theft case

A recent data breach at Logan International Airport involving a TSA contract worker, coming amid other high-profile Transportation Security Administration lapses, casts another cloud over a federal agency engulfed in turmoil. ...read full article

January 3, 2010

Data breaches affect million state residents

One million Massachusetts residents - or 1 in 6 people - have had their credit card numbers, medical records, or other personal information leaked or stolen over the past two years, according to records provided to the Globe by state officials. ...read full article

January 1, 2010

U.S. security rules would break privacy laws, Canadian airlines contend

Canada's major airlines say they will be forced either to break privacy laws or to ignore new American air security rules unless the federal government comes up with a response to U.S. demands for passenger information. ...read full article

January 1, 2010

'Monster' German employee database goes online

Under controversial new legislation, German employers must now submit data on their workers to a central information storage hub, affecting as many as 40 million employees throughout the country. ...read full article

January 1, 2010

Personnel files for Larch workers stolen

Records were in briefcase taken from manager’s car

The Washington Department of Corrections is investigating an incident in which a briefcase full of sensitive personnel records was stolen from the vehicle of a Larch Corrections Center manager early Monday morning. ...read full article

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