‘100,000′ More Stolen Facebook Logins Posted by Israeli Hacker
An Israeli hacker, who calls himself Hannibal online, has once again obtained tens of thousands of Facebook credentials (e-mail addresses and passwords). This time he’s claiming to have access to over 100,000 Facebook accounts belonging to Arabs. He has also announced he will not be posting again because “the Arab hackers are gone” and he has thus declared victory. Hannibal’s latest posting is part of a long string of attacks in the Middle East, where a a hacker war began on January 3, 2012. You can read the the rest of this article by ZDNet from 21 January 2012 by Emil Protalinski by clicking here.
Biggest Consumer Danger: Identity Theft Not Stolen Credit Cards
In the United States, if you use a credit card from MasterCard (MA), American Express (AXP), Visa (V) or Discover (DFS), typically you are protected from fraud on any amount over $50. Almost all online retailers have become smart and store your credit card numbers separate from the rest of your information (which Zappos has done). Zappos seems to have (also) followed the standard practice of encrypting passwords. Unfortunately, even encrypted passwords or ‘hashes’ in security terminology are sought after by criminals. In theory, hashes are difficult to crack, but in practice criminals can run hashes through computer programs and easily pick out weak passwords. Given enough computer power, even moderate and strong passwords are usually not too difficult to crack. Read the rest of this article by Forbes, by Nigam Arora, 17 January 2012 by clicking this link.
Hackers Accessed 24 Million Zappos Customers’ Account Details
The Amazon-owned e-commerce firm has revealed that it was the target of a cyber attack that gained access to its internal network, including the accounts of 24 million of its users. Though the company says that no complete credit card numbers were revealed in the breach, the intruders may have accessed customers’ names, e-mail addresses, phone numbers, addresses, the last four digits of their credit card numbers, and encrypted passwords. Zappos says it’s taken the precaution of resetting the passwords of all its customers and directing them to set a new password upon visiting the site. Read the rest of this story at Forbes by Andy Greenberg on 15 January 2012 by clicking here
More than $20M Stolen from Banks, Individuals and Nassau County Government
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice has announced that the kingpin of the largest mortgage fraud and identity theft ring in Nassau County history has been sentenced to four to 12 years in prison for his role in leading an organization that stole more than $20 million from homeowners, banks, and the Nasssau County government. The DA explained that in order to accomplish this, Sweet Deal recruited individuals to impersonate the seller and buyer, whose identities had been stolen. Sweet Deal also assigned a member of Sweet Deal to impersonate a paralegal and also stole an attorney’s identity to set up a bank account to launder money through. Read the rest of this Westbury Times article from 16 December 2011 by clicking here.
FBI to Get More Cybercrime Agents
The FBI is one of a handful of U.S. agencies tasked with investigating computer crimes and one of the many roadblocks that has stood in the way of more successful cases and prosecutions is a lack of resources, mostly in the form of trained agents. It looks like the bureau will be getting the money in 2012 to hire more agents for its cybercrime unit, but the 14 new agents included in next year's budget still aren't nearly enough to address the full scope of the problem in the U.S., let alone globally. In its budget request to Congress, the FBI has asked for $166.5 million--or $18.6 million more than 2011--for its efforts to investigate and fight computer crimes. Much of the increase is earmarked for new personnel, specifically 42 new positions, including 14 special agents. There also is money meant to be used for training and other functions within the ...
35 Million Steam Users Compromised in Hack
Gamers who use the digital distribution network Steam were warned that their account information may have been exposed to hackers following a compromise of the company's Web page and back end databases. The incident yielded a slew of sensitive customer information, including user’s passwords and encrypted credit card numbers, Steam said. The warning came after an investigation of a Web site defacement that affected Steam's forums on November 6th. Hackers were able to bypass the message boards and access the site’s database, according to a message sent to the site’s users last night by Steam co-founder Gabe Newell. Read the rest of this article at Threat Post's blog 11 November 2011, online by clicking here.
Identity Theft Suspects Nabbed At Feather Falls Casino
Deputies arrested four suspects in an identity theft ring after an incident at Feather Falls Casino. Butte County investigators looked into a report of a fraudulent check last week. They uncovered an identity theft ring involving four suspects and at least 15 victims. A search of the suspects' vehicle turned up check-making materials, printers, computers, fraudulent identification cards and stolen property including checks, mail, bank cards and identifications. Read the rest of this article from KRCRTV.com 10 November 2011 by clicking here.
PandaLabs Reports Trojans, Anonymous, Android Threats Dominate Threat Landscape
In a new report examining the threat landscape over the third quarter, PandaLabs researchers found that five million new malware samples were created from July through September, including a peak of new trojans. In fact, three out of every four new strains created during the quarter was a trojan, the preferred category by which cybercriminals carry out the theft of information. Among the report's other findings, the Anonymous group continues making headlines, albeit not for its hacktivist actions, but for the arrest of some members – 15 in Italy, 16 in the Unites States – for their alleged role in the theft of data or disruption of websites, including PayPal. Read the rest of this report in the SCMagazine.com 4 November 2011 article by clicking here.
BSI named in Pearson OpenClass Announcement at EDUCAUSE
Pearson, the world's leading learning company, today announced that several technology partners have joined OpenClass, the new learning management system (LMS) that's delivered from the Cloud. The announcement was made at EDUCAUSE 2011, the annual gathering of the world's education technology leaders. OpenClass will increase access, achievement and affordability in higher education for students and integrates with Google Apps for Education(TM) and is available in the Google Apps Marketplace(TM). Find out more about OpenClass from Pearson here.
BSI Opens Up Support for HTML5 and Apple iOS Devices
Up until recently, BSI's software required JavaScript to be enabled in your browser with Flash Player 9 or above installed on your computer or device to work. We are happy to announce that we now are BETA testing our HTML5 version of our BioSig-ID software for identity proofing here on our site. Why HTML5? This is the 5th version of HTML and it aims to improve support for the latest multimedia devices while keeping it readable by humans and understood by computers and devices without having to resort to proprietary plugins and APIs. This new technology requirement is the business driver for BSI to support HTML5 for future compatibility issues. Apple computer iPhone and iPad users will be able to use the BSI BioSig-ID application to verify their identity when our BETA testing period ends ...
Industry Use Cases
Securing Mobile and Cloud ComputingAs we become more mobile in our computing activities from banking, shopping, working and ...
Meet New FFIEC RequirementsThe Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) released a supplement (June 28, 2011) to ...
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More coursework to fight academic fraud?
According to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, the rate of improper payments of Pell Grants is down, from 3.12% in 2010 to ... -
New Study from ID Analytics Shows over 2.5 Million Deceased Identities Fraudulently Being Used
The identities of nearly 2.5 million deceased Americans are used improperly to apply for credit products and services each year, according to a new study released today from ID Analytics'
