data theft

77 million accounts were compromised in a massive data breach incurred by Sony Corp. The company this week unveiled the fact of hacking of its video game online network that led to the theft of names, addresses and possibly credit card data belonging to 77 million user accounts.

The breach became known for Sony on April 19 which prompted the company to shut down the network. However, Sony did not uncover the news to the public until Tuesday.

American people are “borrowing” their neighbor’s Wi-Fi connection without any permission and asking. According to a new national survey about 32% of the polled say they mooch a neighbor's unencrypted Wi-Fi connection. That's nearly double the 18% who said they borrowed Wi-Fi in a 2008 poll.

"The reality is that many consumers have not taken the steps to protect themselves," said Kelly Davis-Felner, marketing director at the Wi-Fi Alliance, a non-profit trade group that commissioned the surveys.

While most of us know that when we upgrade our computers or mobile phones buying new ones and selling old models we should be careful not to have our sensitive data stored on the hardware we are getting rid of. But many people today do not know that other office equipment like fax machines and printers can also store our data.

We risk having our sensitive information reach the wrong hands as it was shown in the course of a recent News of the World investigation, which discovered sensitive information on office kit sold through a second-hand supplier.

McAfee, Inc. has announced the launch of its McAfee(R) Identity Protection, one of the most comprehensive and easy to use identity protection services on the market which was co-developed with Experian's ProtectMyID.com(TM). According to McAfee the product features proactive identity surveillance which keeps consumers' identities safe by providing multiple layers of protection, including monitoring the major credit reporting agencies and public records as well as Internet scanning for indicators of identity theft. 

McAfee Identity Protection key benefits: 

A provider of global transaction banking solutions Fundtech announced the launch of its new PAYplus Data Monitoring Module, a fraud prevention system, which is integrated into PAYplus USA that can identify and stop suspicious payment activity before the transaction is sent.

The rules-based technology allows banks to customize the alerts that suit each corporate customer’s usage patter which means lower number of errors and false positives.

More than 700 guests in 21 sites of Destination Hotels & Resorts were affected by the cyber attack. The crooks stole details of cardholders after installing malware of the payment processing system of the hotel chain. Hundreds of thousands dollars have been stolen.

Austin, Texas, police was informed on the scam soon after guests and diners at the Driskill Hotel had their data stolen after spending a night there or eating at the its restaurants.

A popular Internet microblogging service Twitter has agreed to a settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission over counts of putting its users at risk of identity theft by failing to protect their private information.

Under the terms of the settlement Twitter is creating an independently audited security program, among other measures.

According to the results from a new study conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by Experian's ProtectMyID.com it is users themselves often to blame for the private data theft as long as they are doing little to protect their personal information on social networks. The study showed that 80% of the polled express concern over security on the social media websites but still half of these users do nothing to wrestle fraud.

United States experiences an unprecedented growth in educating cyber security experts with contests and courses launched across the nation to boost the country’s preparedness to wrestle online threats. The federal government, education officials and giant military contractors are collaborating to recruit a new class of tech professional specifically trained to battle data thieves, online scammers and cyberspies.

As Gary Locke, the US Commerce Secretary announced Monday, he has a firm belief the long-term health of the US economy would be positive despite concerns raised by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe.

“It's obviously a fragile economy and we're really feeling the effects of what's happening in Europe as well as some of the concerns on Asia, but the fundamentals of the US economy are strong,'' Locke said.

Ipreo Holdings, which operates the bigdough institutional investor database, is suing Goldman Sachs accusing the company of infringing the copyright and stealing the company data. The suit submitted with the US District Court in New York with the accusations that at least two unidentified Goldman employees of 264 incidents of unauthorised access to the computer database in 2008 and 2009.

The filing alleges that that the Goldman staffers used Ipreo passwords without authorisation to steal confidential data from the site, which claims some 16,000 subscribers.

It has been revealed that the infamous hacker Albert Gonzalez, who along with other individuals stood behind a data theft scheme that hit TJX, Office Max, Hannaford Brothers, 7-Eleven and Heartland Payment Systems, was paid by the US Secret Service $75,000 a year.

The US government hired Gonzales to help gather information on bank card thieves and report those findings to federal agents. Starting 2004 Gonzalez received money from the Secret Service to report information about credit card thieves he met online.

According to a recent report by the Identity Theft Resource Center the top cause behind the data breaches is hackers. Previously information was stolen due to lost laptop with unencrypted data or even a lost briefcase. In 2009 the situation changed to that one out of every five data breaches had a hacker behind it.

According to a survey by security software firm McAfee every second largest infrastructure supplier has been hit by a cyberattack.

While many attacks on business users prove successful security experts note that very few of the companies hit by hackers make the information public for fear of spoilt reputation.

In the research for the McAfee the Center of Strategic and International Studies polled about the Center of Strategic and International Studies

As a part of the legal settlement Heartland Payment Systems is to pay US$3.6 million in charges to American Express. The fine is related to the 2008 hacking of Heartland’s data network. It is the first case settled by the payment processor since the hackers’ attack was disclosed in January this year.

Earlier, the Department of Justice charged Albert Gonzalez and several other accomplices with the hack saying that Heartland was one of several companies that the hackers managed to break into using SQL injection attacks.