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 […]
admin
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
The most horrible holiday scams
The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau recently identified 1,000 different holiday scams aimed at British holidaymakers, and says that criminals separated tourists from £1.5 million in the last year alone. Link to article
Protecting your online information is easy
CIFAS – the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service (in collaboration with Dionach, the leading independent global Information Security company) today releases Protecting your online information: a quick and easy guide on how best to protect yourself and your data when online. Link to article
Another IFA falls victim to boiler room scam
Regulator warns against two London-based boiler room operations. Boiler room fraudsters are contacting consumers posing as a County Durham-based advisory firm, which is the latest victim of the growing spectre of so-called ‘clone firm’ scams. According to an alert published last week by the regulator, a London-based boiler room is contacting customers from an email […]
Mobile Threat Monday
Secure told SecurityWatch that the phony Minecraft PE is currently available on several Russian app stores. This isn’t surprising as not all third party stores vet their apps as thoroughly as Google, making some of them havens for malicious applications. Link to article
Top 10 travel scams to look out for
Welcome to the brave new world of vacation ripoffs! The old “catch my baby while I pick your pocket” trick seems downright tame compared with this scary new breed of travel cons. Link to article
Met police to open cyber crime unit
Met Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe today announced plans to develop a “world-leading unit” of police detectives to fight cyber crime. Hogan-Howe claims that traditional policing of cyber crime has failed and many victims reporting a cyber-related crime never speak to a police officer. Link to article
Cyber crime, financial crime top list of threats
Combating the convergence of cyber crime and financial crime heads the list of priorities for defending against digital criminality in 2014 from information intelligence solutions vendor BAE Systems Detica’s. Link to article