The Korean Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) released a statement over the weekend, which revealed that the compromised data includes customer names, social security numbers, credit card numbers and expiry dates. The leak is said to affect at least 20 million users in a country of around 50 million people. Link to article
Month: January 2014
Police smash financial cyber crime gang
Pan-European cyber crime fighting agency EC3 has been hailed after Polish police arrested five Bulgarians accused of electronic payment card fraud targeting mainly UK citizens. European policy body Europol said three of the gang were caught red-handed – two carrying out illegal electronic payment card transactions at automated teller machines (ATMs) and one in the […]
Air Miles/WestJet/Expedia Fake Points
Everyone uses Expedia all over the world, while WestJet and AirMiles are companies mostly used in North America. Air Miles is a great reward system existing in Canada, Spain, Great Britain, Netherlands, and the Middle East, by which collectors get points for specific purchases they make. Link to article
Free Southwest Tickets Scam
Scammers and malware purveyors are always looking for ways to entice online users into following web links that will lead those victims into the traps set for them, and offers of free airline tickets are prime bait in that pursuit of prey. Airline tickets are something nearly everyone uses and have considerable value, but their […]
Cybercrime costing UK £27bn a year
The last few years have been particularly difficult for small and medium sized companies who – like the global economy – have had had to fight their way back from the worst economic recession of a generation. In order to survive, businesses have had to take an extremely critical view of themselves, streamlining processes and […]
Man Scams Airline for Year of Free Meals
A man in China discovered his first-class airline ticket could get him more than just a flight. He used the voucher to score free meals and drinks nearly every day for a year—all courtesy of the VIP airport lounge. A Malaysian Chinese newspaper reports the man changed his flight itinerary more than 300 times within […]
The people most at risk from identity theft
Could you be a target for identity fraudsters? Some 4 million people in the UK have been a victim of this crime, and 80,000 fell victim in the last year alone, so there’s a growing chance that fraudsters could have you in their sights. However, there are seven groups of people who are far more […]
Scam City: a taxi ride from hell
An undercover reporter for Scam City was filmed taking a taxi ride in Mumbai with an uninvited passenger who claimed to be his travel agent. Conor Woodman is an investigative journalist who visited ten of the world’s cities to expose tourist traps for a new programme Scam City. For this latest series he discovered a […]
5 years in prison for Disney World ticket scam
Senior U.S. District Judge Gregory A. Presnell sentenced Werawat Isaraphanich to 5 years in federal prison for access device fraud Monday. Isaraphanich, 38, of New York, was also ordered to serve a 3-year term of supervised release following his incarceration, and to pay more than $323,000 to the victims of his crime. Link to article
Cash for crash
Two fraudsters who arranged for a 12-tonne bus to run into a car as part of a “cash for crash” insurance scam are thought to be behind dozens more fake collisions across the North of England. Mohammed Omar Gulzar and Shoaib Nawaz, from Sheffield, were jailed for a total of eight years yesterday for masterminding […]
Global cybercrime dominated by 50 groups
Cybercrime in 2013 was dominated by a core of around 50 active groups, including Russian and Chinese ‘threat actors’ whose activities are only now coming to light, a report from monitoring firm CrowdStrike has found. Using an approach that foregrounds the ‘threat actors’ above the malware itself, the firm divides groups according to whether they […]
Plugging the security gaps
Headlines such as ‘huge data thefts hit Korea’ or ‘Ivory Coast cracks down on cybercrime’ are never far from the news agenda, yet despite the huge threat that cybercrime poses many governments are still struggling to protect themselves. The potential impact of an attack on our critical national infrastructure and intelligence systems could rock the […]
Mother bullied into credit card fraud
A young mother who was bullied into carrying out a credit card fraud at a Newton Abbot store has escaped jail. Leona Thompson tried to escape by giving police a false identity but was caught when a quick witted police officer spotted a silver bracelet with her own name on her wrist. Link to article
Fraud Review 2013
The analysis of fraud trends during 2013 by CIFAS – the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service reveals a surprising mix of apparently good and equally alarming news about fraud. Overall, fraud levels decreased in 2013 by 11% from the levels recorded in 2012 – the first year on year drop since 2010 – but fraud remains […]
Retail Crime Survey
Most online retailers have suffered cyber attacks over the last year, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) suggests, while most fraud suffered by retailers also takes place online. The BRC’s British Retail Crime Survey 2013 found that 63% of online retailers said they had experienced hacking while 50% had faced denial of service attacks in 2012-13. […]
Fresh Phishing Campaign
Softpedia.com published a news report on January, 10, 2014 quoting an alert raised by experts as clients of NatWest Bank, based in Bishopsgate, UK, are being targeted in a new phishing email campaign started by heartless cybercriminals. Link to article
Mobile phone insurance fraud
Nine people had been charged with conspiracy to defraud after a UK-wide fraud to sell mobile phone insurance was uncovered. Four of those charged pleaded guilty last week at Swansea Crown Court and the jury were due to hear the prosecution’s opening of their case against the remaining defendants yesterday. Link to article
Card Not Present Red Flags
With Credit Card Fraud a growing issue for travel agencies, tour operators, airlines and other companies that sell travel, ARC has compiled a list of “Red Flags” that may help you identify and stop fraudulent Card Not Present (including Call Centre and Online) bookings. Link to article
10 scams to watch out for in 2014
If you are on the hunt for Rugby World Cup tickets or receive a suspicious email from Royal Mail – beware. They involve two of many common financial scams that have the simple aim of separating you from your money, regardless of the distress it may cause. Link to article
Man admits £1.3m bank cyber fraud
Tony Colston-Hayter pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court, London, to conspiring to steal £1.3 million of credit balances from Barclays Bank before diverting the cash to 41 separate bank accounts on April 5 last year. Link to article