identity theft

South Korean police reported Thursday that over 30 North Korean hackers were recruited to work in China by a South Korean criminal ring. The hackers stole personal data of South Korean gamers and transferred $5 million to North Korea.

Seoul blamed North Korea for distributing malicious software to paralyze web sites of government agencies and businesses as well as orchestrating a cyber attack on a South Korean bank this year that brought down its network.

Wells Fargo is encouraging its student customers to take care of the security of their personal and financial information to minimize the risks of fraud and identity theft.

According to the stats by Javelin Strategy & Research (2010) people aged 18 to 24 detect fraud in twice as many days as other age groups, which makes them fraud victims for longer periods.

Instead of sending heavy spam traffic cyber crooks now use targeted attacks via social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, according to the report made by Cisco security executive Tom Grills.

"2010 was the first year spam volumes went down," Gillis said during an onstage interview at DEMO Spring 2011. "Does that mean spam is less of a problem? No."

Now spammers view Facebook and other social networking websites as more effective tool to launch attacks targeted at certain companies or people.

US major website operators like Amazon and Twitter were called upon to switch to more secure protocol than HTTP to thwart identity theft and many other security breaches in such places as coffee shops. The monition was made by the US Senator Charles Schumer at a news conference held at a Manhattan coffee shop.

He said that growing WiFi access at such shops, restaurants and other businesses was helping hackers gain user information like credit card numbers and account passwords.

Cybercrime costs the British economy £27 billion ($43.5 billion) each year according to a new stats reported by the government.

The Office of Cyber Security & Information Assurance and consultancy Detica reported that the amount includes a £21 billion cost to business, of which £9.2 billion results from theft of intellectual property (IP) and £7.6 billion from industrial espionage.

According to new stats from Javelin Strategy & Research the number of victims of ID theft has declined by over a quarter in the United States last year. However, individual victims lost more money on average than ever before.

Javelin Strategy & Research published the results of the annual survey of consumer fraud which showed that total annual reported fraud was down to $37 billion in 2010 from $56 billion in 2009, but the average out-of-pocket loss soared to $631 from $387, over 60% increase.

On the basis of a Michigan statute typically used to prosecute crimes such as identity theft or stealing trade secrets a Rochester Hills man faces up to 5 years in prison. The charge incriminated to him is reading his wife's e-mail.

Leon Walker, 33, was charged with a felony after he logged onto a laptop in the home he shared with his wife, Clara Walker. Using her password, he accessed her Gmail account and learned she was having an affair. He now is facing a Feb. 7 trial. She filed for divorce, which was finalized earlier this month.

In the wake of increasing number of purchases made online this holiday season a version of Zeus botnet is targeting credit-card account holders who shop several major U.S. retailers including Macys and Nordstrom, reports security firm Trusteer.

In light of National Cyber Security Awareness Month the world’s largest card network Visa launched a new website to help cardholders and small businesses protect payment card account information, avoid payment card scams and resolve unauthorized use of their cards.

ZeuS botnet continues its evolution despite high-profile crack downs on its orchestrators in the US, UK and Ukraine, according to security experts.

Zeus Trojan bust reveals sophisticated 'money mules' operation in U.S.

"There's a community building it and supporting it," says Eric Skinner, CTO of Entrust. "There's no one person to take down. If one person stops updating, somebody else will pick up the task. It's not like when you shut down a software company and the product ceases to be developed."

Interpol chief’s Ronald K. Noble appeared to be as vulnerable to identity theft as anyone else. 

At last week's inaugural Interpol Information Security Conference in Hong Kong, secretary general Noble unveiled that criminals had set up two accounts impersonating him on the networking site during this summer's high-profile global dragnet, 'Operation Infra-Red'.

A new survey commissioned by Symantec revealed that about 2/3 of all Internet users have been attacked by some sort of cyber crime, and a surprisingly large percentage of them felt guilty about that.

The survey polled more than 7,000 Internet users in 14 countries and found that 65% of Internet users worldwide have already been victims. In the U.S., it's 73 percent, but things are worse in China (83 percent), Brazil (76 percent) and India (also 76 percent).

A new research by BitDefender confirmed that there is sense in having different user names and passwords to protect identities and information not meant to be public. The company revealed that many people today use the same user name and password in logging into several secure websites. The experiment also revealed that some 250,000 e-mail addresses, user names and passwords were found in social and open networks, including blogs, collaboration platforms, torrents, and other channels.

A provider of alternative electronic payments eBillme has announced the addition of online coupons for back-to-school shoppers looking to save some money. Customers can join eBillme.com's mailing list to receive back-to-school sales alerts. In addition to these special sales at participating merchants, eBillme.com also offers customers a special 'deal of the day.' These deals come from name brand merchants such as Sears and Buy.com and the merchandise is offered at a steeply discounted rate.

Visa Europe has released the first whitepaper to help the hospitality business owners safeguard their customers’ data against fraud. In the 'Hospitality Breaches on the Rise' Visa offers insight on how cyber-criminals target hotels, and guidance on how data can be protected to help businesses comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).