Tesco has suspended thousands of online accounts after cybercriminals targeted log-in credentials and Clubcard points. The deactivation comes after thousands of usernames and passwords – taken from non-Tesco websites – appeared on a text sharing website. Fraudsters then used that data to crack accounts at Tesco.com, relying on the fact that some people use the […]
admin
Car insurance fraudsters cause 1,000 accidents a week
Insurance fraudsters have staged over 300,000 car accidents since 2008 in scams that affect more than 1,000 innocent motorists a week and push up premiums for all drivers. Link to article
Fake car insurance on Gumtree
Mohammed Samad Ali received an eight month custodial sentence, suspended for two years, and 200 hours unpaid work at the Old Bailey today (Thursday 13 February 2014) after he admitted posting five adverts offering cheap car insurance on the classifieds website in a bid to dupe drivers into paying for phoney policies. Link to article
The cost of online dating fraud
As the use of the internet for dating increases, so do the number of scams associated with it . . . and the amount of money lost. In the UK, this type of fraud is costing the victims a heart-breaking £24.5million per year, with over 2,800 people reporting online dating related crimes in 2013 alone. […]
Fraudsters jailed in cold calling scam
A judge has handed jail terms totalling almost 30 years to 14 people involved in a large scale cold calling telephone scam. Posing as Sky TV sales agents, the operation often targeted the elderly who “were pounced on in glee as easy marks” with sales patter which was “bullying and humiliating”. Link to article
Cyber crime prevention
UTTER the words “cyber crime” and many minds will conjure up an image of an awkward teenager, tapping away in their bedroom well into the early hours. But cyber crime can be much scarier than that. Threats today also come from criminal networks and foreign governments that deploy cyber weapons. Some of these assailants are […]
Police launch crackdown on fake retailers
The police are stepping up efforts to fight fraud involving criminals impersonating large UK food retailers. Link to article
Victim of fraud: how to reclaim your identity
Over four million people in the UK have been a victim of identity fraud, and the number of victims is rising faster than ever before: some 80,000 people had their identity stolen in the last year alone. The UK Fraud Prevention Service found that the average person loses £1,190 from the theft of their identity, […]
Hotel operator investigating data security breach
White Lodging Services Corp. is investigating a potential credit-card security breach. The hotel management company has 171 hotels in its portfolio, include 78 properties under Marriott International’s Courtyard and Residence Inn brands. White Lodging “has experienced unusual fraud patterns in connection with its systems that process credit card transactions at a number of hotels across […]
Fake vouchers and how to avoid fraud
Vouchers and coupons give customers key incentives to develop their interest in a brand but as the appeal of the marketing lever rises so do the stakes around misuse, counterfeiting and scams. Link to article
Hackers caught selling Target card data
Eastern European cyber criminals have been caught selling customer data stolen during a raid on US retailer Target, say security researchers at FireEye. The Target breach is believed to have occurred between 27 November and 15 December. It saw hackers break into Target’s systems and compromise over 40 million credit and debit card accounts. Link […]
Police ransomware warning
Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre has warned internet users to remain vigilant against the “exponential” growth in police ransomware, which tricks users into handing over cash to criminals. The scam uses malware that displays warnings on a user’s computer pretending to be from a law enforcement agency and claims that because the user has engaged in […]
Travel agency scams
A Burlington County judge on Friday sentenced Daryl Turner of Marlton to seven years in prison for running a bogus travel operation that exploited hundreds of victims. Superior Court Judge Terrence R. Cook Jr. also ordered Turner and his wife, Robyn Bernstein, to pay $2.5 million in restitution, and sentenced Bernstein to five years of […]
South Koreans hit by massive banking breach
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
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 […]