Consumerist
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zombie computers
Comcast To Warn You If Your Zombie Computer Is Secretly Spamming People
Where does spam come from? Well, there are these things called botnets. They're networks of hijacked computers that secretly do the bidding of their masters. Often, they send out spam. Comcast plans to offer an automated service that will inform you, within your browser, if your computer is behaving as if it has been compromised by malware. More » -
identity theft
Grab Your Old Statements, We're Going To The Shred-A-Thon!
Tucson, Arizona is hosting a community shred-a-thon in October, where private citizens can show up with boxes of sensitive data and have it shredded for free. Back in July, the Wall Street Journal looked at the growing trend of community shredding events as an example of how regular people are taking action to prevent identity theft. More » -
advice
5 Ways To Prevent Identity Theft
If you're still not shredding, locking, and canceling, maybe a giant graphic will get the point across. Follow these five tips and you'll be well on your way to securing your side of things when it comes to ID theft.
Hoping retailers secure their side of things is another matter, but that's why step 5 of this chart is "monitor your credit report."
"5 Easy Steps To Preventing Identity Theft" [Visual Economics]
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credit cards
ID Theft Ringleader Pleads Guilty
Albert Gonzalez, a 28-year-old from Miami who was arrested last year and charged with leading "a worldwide ring that stole more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers from major retail chains," plead guilty today as part of a plea bargain. He faces up to 25 years in prison. More » -
security
Hackers Indicted For Stealing 130 Million Credit Card Numbers
130 million is a large number, but that's how many credit card numbers a group of three hackers are alleged to have stolen from five different companies including 7 Eleven, Hannaford, and Heartland Payment Systems says the Department of Justice. More » -
id theft
New Jersey: Sorry, We Mailed Your SSN To Some Random Companies
Oh, human error. New Jersey has announced that an unknown number of unemployed residents had their personal information shared with companies they never worked for. More » -
phishing
Beware Of Fake Facebook
Reader Eric says he got a fairly realistic-looking Facebook phishing email and wanted to warn others not to click. More » -
An employee of Starbucks has filed a class action lawsuit against the company for failing to properly secure employee data. The employee was one of one of 97,000 notified late last year after a Starbucks laptop containing employee names, addresses and Social Security numbers was stolen. [NetworkWorld via Starbucks Gossip]
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scams
You Can Steal The Empire State Building In Only 90 Minutes
The Daily News has stolen the Empire State Building, and it only took 90 minutes. They made up some fake paperwork and successfully got the deed to the 102-story landmark transferred to a fake company called "Nelots Properties LLC." Get it? Nelots? Stolen? The information provided to the city register was laughably fake — King Kong star Fay Wray was listed as a witness. More » -
id theft
Bank Sends You Another Copy Of Your Credit Card Just To Remind You To Use It
Here's a weird story. Chris at PhillyBurbs.com was dealing with some ID theft problems (random charges were showing up on his credit cards) when he got a random credit card in the mail. It was an extra copy of a card he did indeed have. Wondering if someone was trying to get copies of his cards — he contacted the bank: More » -
id theft
Did Turkish Police Beat Information Out Of A Suspect In The TJ Maxx Credit Card Case?
Christopher Soghoian over at Cnet is reporting that Turkish police may have used violence to get the encryption keys of one of primary ringleaders in the TJ Maxx credit card theft investigation. The suspect, Maksym Yastremskiy, is apparently a "major figure in the international sale of stolen credit card information." More » -
hilarious
Walmart Sells You An Empty Box Instead Of A Laptop — But You Bought It With Stolen Credit Cards
You know how sometimes in football both teams will screw up on the same play and the penalties will offset? We've just found the fraud version of that situation. Three men brought a laptop computer box to Walmart and said that they'd been sold an empty box. Walmart thought they were being scammed, so they called the police. That's when all hell broke loose. More » -
id theft
7 Stupid Online Security Mistakes You're Probably Making
A new study National Cyber Security Alliance says that you're probably making one of these 7 stupid mistakes when it comes to your own online security. The study shows that when Symantec, polled 3,000 online users and scanned the computers of 400 of them, 81 percent of respondents said they were using a firewall, but only 42 percent indeed had a firewall installed on their computer. Whoops. More » -
comcatastrophe
Idiot Comcast Door-To-Door Salesmen Cause Neighborhood Panic
Yesterday, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that the police were looking for two men who were posing as Comcast employees as a ruse to steal social security numbers. The men were driving an unmarked car, wandering around a neighborhood knocking on doors and telling residents they needed to fix some wiring issues. One resident refused, claiming that she didn't have an appointment. She then saw the employees start knocking on other doors and, finding it unlikely that her entire neighborhood could have "wiring issues," called the police. More » -
id theft
Blue Cross Blue Shield Of Georgia Sends 202,000 Letters Containing Personal Information To The Wrong Addresses
Well, if you're having a bad day at work, rest assured that someone in Georgia is having a worse one. The Journal-Constitution is reporting that 202,000 Blue Cross Blue Shield of Georgia customers had their personal information exposed, including (in some cases) their social security numbers, thanks to an error in the computerized mailing system. The system was apparently used before it was tested. More » -
Stein Mart
Stein Mart Settles Personal Data Breach By Offering... Coupons
Stein Mart was caught "printing expiration dates and/or more than the last five digits of credit cards on receipts," and was subsequently hit with a class action lawsuit for exposing sensitive customer data. Now they've settled by agreeing to run coupons in local newspapers. It gets better: instead of a flat 20% off coupon, the store is requiring minimum-purchase amounts that reduce the savings if your purchase falls between the arbitrarily set thresholds.
- $10 off a purchase of $50 or more
- $20 off a purchase of $100 or more
- $30 off a purchase of $150 or more
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apple
"Apple Just Gave Out My Apple ID Password Because Someone Asked"
All the security in the world can be rendered useless by human error, it seems. Marko Karppinen, a software designer, says Apple gave his password to someone who simply emailed them and asked for it. More » -
curves
Curves Leaves Working Computer Full Of Personal Information In An Office Dumpster
UPDATE: Adam has been in contact with the owners and has posted an update on his site.
Reader Adam writes in to let us know his relative found a working Dell computer in the dumpster at his office complex. It appeared to be in functional condition, so he took it home. Sure enough, it took only a bit of tweaking before it was back to working order—as a Curves Fitness employee and customer information smorgasbord. More »
id theft
New York, 7:25 AM
Sun Nov 8
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