Security News
With more people working from home and e-commerce experiencing a boom-time, fraudsters have taken notice. According to a special report, Impacts of Global E-Commerce and Fraud Trends Amid Coronavirus, released by e-commerce fraud-prevention provider Forter, as consumers have shifted their purchases online and begun working from home en masse, fraudsters are taking full advantage.
A case of alleged low-orbit internet banking fraud has taken another twist, with the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas filing an indictment in which it claimed the complainant in the case had lied. The case came to our attention in August 2019 when we chronicled how astronaut Lt Col Anne McClain denied a claim that she'd improperly accessed a bank account belonging to ex-wife Summer Worden while aboard the International Space Station.
The COVID-19 crisis is driving the global growth of e-commerce sales, with millions of consumers worldwide in quarantine shopping for goods, services and entertainment online. Transaction volumes in most retail sectors have seen a 74 percent rise in March compared to the same period last year, while online gaming has seen a staggering increase of 97 percent, according to analysis by ACI Worldwide of hundreds of millions of transactions from global online retailers.
Identiq uses cryptographic algorithms and preserves customer privacy while enabling companies to to identify new customers through a network of trust. An ID validation and fraud prevention startup has developed what it claims is the first and only truly anonymous peer-to-peer verification network that enables companies to work together to validate identities without sharing or exposing any personal customer data.
Identity fraud affects around one in 15 people in the US and has never been higher in the UK. The fraudsters have built their own subculture as new tools and channels lower the bar for entry. While it seems surprising, there is a way to turn identity fraud into a positive customer experience.
A federal court has ruled that violating a website's terms of service is not "Hacking" under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. Leading job sites have terms of service prohibiting users from supplying fake information, and the researchers worried that their research could expose them to criminal liability under the CFAA, which makes it a crime to "Access a computer without authorization or exceed authorized access."
Last week we wrote about a WhatsApp hoax that was spreading widely, warning people to look out for a cybersecurity catastrophe that simply wasn't going to happen. The City of London Police in turn link you to UK National Fraud and Cyber Crime Reporting Centre's ActionFraud website, where you will see that the "City of London Police hasn't issued any alerts about fake messages from Danske Bank.".
Just as law-abiding people have been discussing COVID-19, so too have criminals on the dark web. In a report published last week, Sixgill discussed the specific topics that the coronavirus has been generating on the dark web.
Federal investigators in Russia have charged at least 25 people accused of operating a sprawling international credit card theft ring. In a statement released this week, the Russian Federal Security Service said 25 individuals were charged with circulating illegal means of payment in connection with some 90 websites that sold stolen credit card data.
The survey reported a 347% increase in account takeover and 391% rise in shipping fraud attempts globally against its online retail customers from 2018 to 2019. "With so many reported data breaches, it's not just about if your account will be hijacked, it's about when," said Melissa Gaddis, senior director of customer success for TransUnion Fraud & Identity Solutions.