Cybercrime is no longer stuff that fanatical comic books espouse as prophetic utterances. It is a billion-dollar industry that continues to grow regardless of what security measures and technological advances are made. And there is no sign of it letting up any time soon.

But rather than leave the crooks to their own devices and enjoy their perceived freedom the FBI have their own tactics for spying out the climate of online terrorism.

Wired News started a three part series last month sharing the views of David Thomas, a one-time Mr Big of cybercrime, as he now fights against the hackers as an unidentified possible employee of the FBI.

The story starts here and progresses through a case of a sojourning honeymooner who was fraudulently separated with more than $106,000 as he holidayed with his new wife. The money was moved to a Belgian bank account and withdrawn by a second accomplice.

Unbeknown to the cybercrime hacker he was being watched by Thomas and every conversation between him and his accomplice was observed and recorded. The Belgian withdrawer never showed and both him and the hacker, known as desertmack, were simultaneously arrested - though not for the same crimes.

Stories like these happen on a regular basis and it helps continue the fight against these online cybercrimes. They will probably never go away, but be assured the are being contested and convicted.

Link found via Boing Boing

Posted by Stuart at 10:25 AM | Permalink

What do you do when market share becomes too competitive? You source other untapped markets that may be as feasible or more so that the bottom line continues to increase.

This seems the logical explanation for Bank of America's latest insurgence into a possible market, illegal immigrants, obviously identified by other banks - but never courted. This untapped audience could be as large as 8.7 million persons according to one source and may even be as large as 20 million people.

That's a fairly sizable portion of the population who have absolutely no banking opportunities. It presents itself much like finding a nation of people who don't wear shoes but have been trying everything to keep their feet covered.

The Bank of America is offering clients a $500 credit card if they have a checking account with the bank. The only stipulation is that they have a relevant Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) issued by the IRS. Critics, however, complain that these ITIN's are too easy to secure for undocumented immigrants.

Possibly, this could lead to many problems by allowing identity theft to occur via a legitimate avenue.

A Department for Homeland Security spokesman, Russ Knocke stated,

"At face value the program seems to be problematic. It seems to be lending itself to possibilities of perpetrating identity theft or creating more risk for money laundering."

Very scary when you consider how easy it might be for a person bent on terrorist activities to legitimately use banking facilities in the US.

The plan is still in its pilot stage but by all reports it appears that it will be rolled out throughout all Bank of America branches in the very near future.

Source: The South Florida Business Journal

Posted by Stuart at 6:14 AM | Permalink

Sarah Dinkins of the American Chronicle would have us believe, from her Jan 12 2007 article, that voice recognition credit cards have only just hit the technology frontline. But her article, based on information taken from New Scientist's initial uncovering, doesn't offer any new discoveries to the data NS reported back in 2004.

So, while we're all hearing this information regurgitated ad nauseum my question is "Will this card ever eventuate?"

Beepcard, the pioneers of this technology haven't been heard from in the three years that NS broke the story. In fact, they were quoted in this article as saying,

Los Angeles-based Beepcard, which makes the hardware-driven type, expects a major U.S. credit-card association to roll it out by the first quarter of 2006, says CEO Moshe Cohen.

If the technology is ready to go and banks are quoted as stating that;

Over-the-phone fraud already affects 12% of all banks offering e-payment services, according to the American Bankers Assn.

why has a credit-card association not picked this up and run with it yet?

12 months after Beepcard's prediction there is no visible sign on the financial horizon of this credit card. Has Beepcard not perfected the technology yet? Or, are we to believe that credit-card institutions are making more money than they need and 12% fraudulent activity is an acceptable level?

Posted by Stuart at 5:17 AM | Permalink

Netcraft recently reported on a flaw in the Paypal system that allowed phishers to exploit their website. The report explains how the fraudsters maliciously set about to deceive Paypal users through a cross-site scripting technique (XSS).

Paypal users met the exploited flaw on visiting the genuine site with a message that read, "Your account is currently disabled because we think it has been accessed by a third party. You will now be redirected to Resolution Center." After a slight delay the victim would be redirected to a third-party page that looked very similar to the Paypal site.

This new site would request the member to login using their normal Paypal identity and ask for the victim to enter other personal details. These included credit card numbers, social security details and PIN's.

Once Paypal became aware of the flaw they set about to remedy the situation and it has now been fixed.

"As soon as we became aware of this scheme, we changed some of the code on the PayPal Web site. So this scheme, or any scheme like it, can no longer be effective," Amanda Pires, a PayPal spokeswoman, said in an interview.

She also stated that Paypal was working with the Internet service provider that hosts the malicious site to get it shut down, and does not yet know how many people may have fallen victim to the scam.

Posted by Stuart at 7:24 AM | Permalink

In fact, in this case, it was the result of a pizza purchase that caused the consumer to become a victim of identity theft. The story is about a couple that purchased a pizza from a store and had their card unknowingly swiped twice. The first swipe pays for the pizza while the second swipe retrieves the data from the magnetic strip making the information available to would-be criminals.

With the digital age progressing faster than someone breaking their diet, opportunities for identity theft are becoming more and more prevalent. At one point in our electronic history it seemed the only way you could lose your identity was through online credit card transactions and many scared consumers would steer clear of these purchases. In today's marketplace you can be scammed through so many channels that keeping vigilant is like trying to kill cockroaches - as soon as you kill one another super-cockroach comes back bigger and stronger and far more resilient.

Continue reading "Identity theft is a fact: Try buying a pizza without it" »

Posted by Stuart at 10:56 AM | Permalink