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Blog / April 2006
94,000 Los Angeles County Residents Exposed to Identity Theft
Apr 2, 2006 by Tom Fragala
GuardmyCreditFile reports The Los Angeles County Office of the Department of Public Social Services announced today that it has sent letters to 94,000 county residents that they may have been exposed to identity theft. In January, documents containing their names,...
US Secret Service cracks down on data thieves
Apr 4, 2006 by Tom Fragala
From a press release on the USSS’ web site: UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE’S OPERATION ROLLING STONE NETS MULTIPLE ARRESTSOngoing Undercover Operation Targets Cyber Fraudsters March 27, 2006 Washington, D.C. – The United States Secret Service today made public an ongoing...
100,000 Florida State Workers at Risk in Data Leak
Apr 4, 2006 by Tom Fragala
ComputerWorld reports Personal information of state employees in Florida may have been compromised after work on the state's People First payroll and human resources system was improperly subcontracted to one or more firms in India.About 108,000 current and former employees...
Beating phishers at their own game
Apr 4, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Cnet has a story about a company called Cyota. They are doing something pretty cool to fight back against phishers. It’s sort of simple and obvious..and very clever. RSA Security's Cyota division is helping fight phishing attacks by giving the...
FTC: Advance-Fee Credit Card’ Swindlers Settle Charges
Apr 5, 2006 by Tom Fragala
From the FTC website: Two corporate defendants and their principals have settled Federal Trade Commission charges for duping consumers into paying an advance fee for credit cards they never received, in violation of the FTC Act and the FTC’s Telemarketing...
Internet Explorer hit by new phishing flaw
Apr 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala
From ComputerWeekly… Another serious security hole has been unearthed in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser, which could lead to users being tricked into thinking fake phishing sites are genuine.The error in the browser can be exploited to fake the address bar...
Data breach at Progressive highlights insider threat
Apr 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala
This article from Computerworld digs into the security threat from insiders, using the example of a recent data breach. A recent case in which an employee at Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. wrongfully accessed information on foreclosure properties she was interested...
Story tells how ID theft can ruin lives, not just credit
Apr 9, 2006 by Tom Fragala
XTVWorld has a story about how identity theft caused a Pentagon employee to lose his job, career and potentially his home, car and life savings. If you think ID theft is over-hyped or not a big deal, read on… Thaddeus...
Kudos to Microsoft Messenger team
Apr 10, 2006 by Tom Fragala
In the Windows Messenger software I run, when I click to send a message I always see this first “Never give out your password or credit card number in an instant message conversation.”. Good advice. In most cases, instant messaging...
SpoofCard: I have a bad feeling about this
Apr 11, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Have you heard about SpoofCard? It's a calling card that let's you change the CallerID number that appears on the phone you are calling to. And it doesn't even have to be a 10 digit number. You could send "411"...
Minnesota passes identity theft bill
Apr 12, 2006 by Tom Fragala
The AP reports The Minnesota Senate united Monday to approve safeguards against identity theft for consumers and provide help for victims who are trying to clean up their records. The bill from Sen. Dan Sparks, would allow Minnesotans to put...
Utah Introduces New Identity Theft Reporting System
Apr 12, 2006 by Tom Fragala
KUTV has this story The state attorney general’s Office introduced a new identity theft reporting system Monday that it says will cut down on the amount of time victims spend proving their identity has been stolen.Victims of identity theft can...
Credit freezes and protecting your credit file from fraud
Apr 13, 2006 by Tom Fragala
I recently got a question from a reader. Someone told him that everyone should get a credit freeze. I emailed a response and I thought you might want to see my thoughts on this matter (slightly edited for this blog). There...
Ross-Simons says security breach exposes customers
Apr 14, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Computerworld reports Ross-Simons, which sells specialty merchandise through retail stores and more than 60 million catalogs each year, late yesterday said a security breach could allow unauthorized access to its customers' confidential financial information.The company -- whose products include jewelry,...
Data Brokers and Government Not Compliant with Privacy Act
Apr 16, 2006 by Tom Fragala
SANS NewsBites - Vol: 8, Issue: 28 reports According to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security and State and the Social Security Administration spend a total of US$30 million to acquire data from information...
Phone Privacy Bill in US Senate
Apr 16, 2006 by Tom Fragala
U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog reports on what it calls an “Awful Phone Privacy Bill.” Here's a consumer letter (PIRG, Consumers Union, Consumer Federation of America) opposing S 2389, a bill marked up today in Senate Commerce that purports to protect...
Cleaning Up Caller ID Spoof Services
Apr 16, 2006 by Tom Fragala
In a recent post, I talked about a Caller ID fake out service called SpoofCard. Looks like I was right when I said the FCC has jurisdiction over these types of services. Wired News has a story on proposed legislation...
No credit card data breach in N.H. server case
Apr 17, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Computerworld reports An FBI investigation has concluded that no consumer credit or debit card information was stolen from a New Hampshire state computer server in February because a suspect Cain & Abel password recovery program found on the hardware had...
Beware the 'pod slurping' employee
Apr 17, 2006 by Tom Fragala
CNET News.com has the story: A U.S. security expert who devised an application that can fill an iPod with business-critical data in a matter of minutes is urging companies to address the very real threat of data theft. Abe Usher,...
Mail carrier arrested on suspicion of identity theft
Apr 19, 2006 by Tom Fragala
The Santa Cruz Sentinel has a story of a substitute mail carrier that is a suspect in stealing mail. The post service is one of my biggest concerns and people don’t seem to talk a lot about it. The mail...
Arizona House OKs bill to curb identity theft
Apr 19, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Arizona has probably the worse ID theft problem in the country. And many people I talk to attribute the problem, at least partly, to weak laws and lax enforcement. A January 2006 report by the FTC, entitled “Consumer Fraud and...
New Colorado security freeze - July 1 2006
Apr 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Colorado has a new credit freeze law going into effect July 1st. Here’s the details from the Colorado Attorney General: Beginning on July 1, 2006, consumers will have the option of requesting any consumer reporting agency to place a security...
Wired's Article on the So-called Anti-ID-Theft Bills
Apr 21, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Bruce Schneier has an article in Wired News about the new identity theft bills floating around Congress. Probably the biggest flaw with these potential federal laws are they are written to wipe out stronger state laws that already exist. I wrote about it previously...
Massive Social Security Number Fraud for Employment
Apr 23, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Using a SSN fraudulently to get employment is nothing new. But there’s a lot of new buzz surrounding the issue of “undocumented” workers stealing or using stolen social security numbers. This is not a small matter. If someone uses a...
University of So. Carolina exposes student SSNs
Apr 24, 2006 by Tom Fragala
MSNBC.com reports University of South Carolina officials are advising students to watch their credit reports after the Social Security numbers of as many as 1,400 students were mistakenly e-mailed to classmates. A department chairwoman distributing information about summer classes accidentally...
Arizona Drops the Ball With Weak Data Breach Bill
Apr 26, 2006 by Tom Fragala
GuardMyCreditFile reports Arizona’s state legislature has passed a data breach notification law that is currently awaiting the signature of Governor Janet Napolitano. While the law may have been well intentioned, it has some critical flaws and we are urging the...
Identity Theft Crimes Rarely Solved
Apr 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Click2Houston.com has an article on fraud and ID theft in Houston: “HPD records show in the last year, only 2 percent of forgery and counterfeiting cases and only 12 percent of fraud cases were actually solved.”...
Univ. of Texas data breach exposes 197,000 people
Apr 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala
Computerworld has the story on a new data breach at the University of Texas. In another reminder of the vulnerability of university networks, the University of Texas at Austin over the weekend announced that someone had broken into a computer...
Fraudsters steal details on 2,000 credit cards
Apr 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala
CNET News.com says “Fraudsters stole the credit card details of 2,000 MasterCard holders in a major security breach last week.” This appears to effect card holders in the U.K. only....
LexisNexis Says Data Breach Honesty is Best Policy
Apr 28, 2006 by Tom Fragala
SANS NewsBites - Vol: 8, Issue: 34 talks about this interesting insight from a company responsible for a major data breach last year. Speaking at the Infosec Europe 2006 conference in London, LexisNexis senior director for information security Leo Cronin...
Iowa proposes ID theft 'passport'
Apr 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala
CNET News.com has this story: Lawmakers in Iowa are proposing a special "passport" meant to protect victims of identity theft against false criminal action and credit charges. The "Identity Theft Passport" will be a card or certificate that victims of...
Wisconsin Governor Proposing New ID Theft Law
Apr 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala
WXOW TV-19 reports Wisconsin Governor is proposing a new ID theft law which would include an ID theft passport, which sounds similar to what Iowa is proposing. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, in light of...
Data Breach Disclosure State Laws
Apr 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala
About.com had a valuable writeup on security breaches called Understanding Data Breach Disclosure. In it, Brian Koerner, has some super links with detailed and up to date state laws on data breaches, which are worthwhile linking to directly. Definitely check...
North Carolina "Scam Jams"
Apr 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala
The New Bern Sun Journal has an article on public forums in North Carolina to educate citizens on common scams and ID theft. There will be 24 of the Scam Jams held in NC through November. The Scam Jams will...
Aetna Data Breach Effects 38,000
Apr 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala
The blog Make Money Fast Hall of Humiliation points to a story in the Consumerist that reports insurance company Aetna has an employee’s laptop stolen....
Organized Crime Behind Online Crime
Apr 29, 2006 by Tom Fragala
The mmfhoh blog has an interesting post about organized crimes impact or influence on Internet-based crime. No question in my mind here that organized crime, especially the Russian mob, plays a huge part in fraud and scams. Some that spring...