Tag: CYBER CRIME

When it comes to being up to date with the latest trends and techniques in law-evasion, lawyers are, by definition, experts. Even they, however, can fall prey to well-disguised cybercrimes, as one New Hampshire barrister has just proven. The lawyer, who remains anonymous, reportedly lost some $240,000 after falling for an online scam that used fake companies and counterfeit checks to hire ...

Share Valery Maltsev, believed to be the sole owner and operator of Broco Investments, has found himself in the crosshairs of the SEC. The St. Petersburg, Russia-based trader has had his assets and accounts frozen after being fingered as the man behind a "pump and dump" scam. According to a complaint filed by the SEC, Broco hacked several accounts at AmeriServe Financial, and used them to ...

digg_url ='http://www.switched.com/2009/09/29/convicted-hacker-left-in-charge-of-prison-computer-system/'; In a twist of Alanis Morrissettian irony, a man serving a six-year prison sentence for stealing millions of dollars through online credit card fraud recently succeeded in (surprise!) hacking into his prison's computer network, effectively paralyzing the entire system. The really ...

People following clues that could reveal parts of the plot for best-selling author Dan Brown's upcoming book, 'The Lost Symbol,' didn't find what they were looking for Tuesday. Instead, they were led to a Web site that installed a fake anti-virus program on their PCs. According to Wired, the scam is the result of a promotion on NBC's 'Today' show, in which host Matt Lauer reveals clues about ...

On July 4th, as U.S. citizens celebrated the War of Independence, unknown cybercriminals launched a concentrated attack on several Federal Web sites. According to Associated Press reports, the unusually sophisticated attack affected Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and Transportation Department Web sites. Sources familiar with the situation believe the ...

Cybercrime spans the entire globe, and, until now, there's been little collaboration between nations when it comes to combating international networks of hackers. The Wall Street Journal reports on the newly formed European Electronic Crime Task Force -- a Rome-headquartered effort between the United States and the European Union. The group is backed by the muscle of the U.S. Secret Service, an ...

A group of English ne'er-do-well scammers, have been arrested by the Metropolitan police (also referred to as Scotland Yard) for international music fraud. After uploading a few songs they allegedly recorded to iTunes and Amazon, the group commenced to repeatedly create and buy its own songs with 1,500 stolen credit cards. An unnamed police source told the Times Online, "We will not know why they ...

While few businesses have made it through the current financial crisis unscathed, certain "entrepreneurs" continue to be successful: scam artists and con men. It can be difficult to stay abreast of such crooks' rapidly changing ploys, such as the recent phishing scam that promised expedited government stimulus checks, so we all need to exercise extreme caution whenever we are asked for personal ...

When consultant jobs are few and far between, you have to make the most out of the ones you can get. Take, for instance, Zeldon Morris. When the Family First Credit Union in Orem, Utah hired the Provo man to fix some bugs in a recent computer upgrade, Morris decided to take some liberties with a few of the accounts, according to Provo's Daily Herald. According to recently submitted court ...

Ah, yes. It was about this time last year when we were looking at an FBI report indicating that 2007 was the worst year on record for Internet fraud. Crime was up 25-percent from 2006, and we sure thought it couldn't get any worse. Sadly, it sure did -- 33-percent worse, to be specific. Yes, the 2008 report has been released by the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center, or IC3. The report ...

Just as Microsoft has decided it's done playing games, and has put a price on the head of the hackers behind Conficker, the elusive cyber-criminals have upped the ante. A new version of the malware, dubbed Conficker B++, is spreading like wildfire, thanks to a newly unplugged security hole and self-updating features. The new version allows the virus to download updates that could ...

If you're a company that specializes in online security and anti-virus solutions, here's a tip: Make sure your Web site doesn't get hacked. Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened to security firm F-Secure's Web site last week. The same hacker also hit the sites of Russian firm Kaspersky, and the Portugal-based BitDefender -- all within a week, and all using the same method. While no ...

If you're one of the many who envision hackers and identity thieves as pitiful, grubby men, slouched behind their computers in their parents' basements, peering at their computer screens with beady, glazed eyes, then the group of hackers that stole $9 million from global ATMs this past November might just put a new image in your mind. According to Network World, these cyber criminals are more ...

Those tricky Nigerian scammers are at again. This time, they are impersonating people on Facebook, according to AlleyInsider, and (surprise, surprise) they're asking for money. The formula of their scam hasn't changed -- it just has a more personal twist these days. While Facebook is pretty secure, hackers -- if they try hard enough -- can still hack into your account and get your info. Pay ...

It was about 18 months ago that Monster.com's databases were hacked, compromising the personal information of roughly 1.2 million registrants (most of whom had signed up looking for a job, not for a new way to have their phone numbers stolen0. The job-seeker's site, of course, pledged to fix the hole right away, but, sadly, didn't do a particularly good job of it, as we're hearing that the ...