Security News
Newly released Federal Trade Commission data shows that consumers reported losing nearly $8.8 billion to fraud in 2022, an increase of more than 30 percent over the previous year. Consumers reported losing more money to investment scams - more than $3.8 billion-than any other category in 2022.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission revealed today that Americans lost almost $8.8 billion to various types of scams in 2022, following a significant surge of over 30% more lost to fraud compared to the previous year. In 2021, Americans also reported losses of more than $5.8 billion to fraud, another massive increase of over 70% compared to 2020.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission says Americans once again reported record losses of $1.3 billion to romance scams in 2022, with median losses of $4,400. "Last year's romance scam numbers looked a lot like 2021 all over again, and it's not a pretty picture. In 2022, nearly 70,000 people reported a romance scam, and reported losses hit a staggering $1.3 billion," the FTC said.
Epic Games has reached a $520 million settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over allegations that the Fortnite creator violated online privacy laws for children and tricked users into making unintended purchases in the video game. To that end, the company will pay a record $275 million monetary penalty for breaching the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting the personal information of Fortnite players under the age of 13 without seeking permission from their parents.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has sued education technology company Chegg after exposing the sensitive information of tens of millions of customers and employees in four data breaches suffered since 2017. The agency's proposed order would require Chegg to shore up data security, implement multifactor authentication to help users secure their accounts, limit collected and stored customer data, and allow customers to access and delete their data.
Analysis Drizly CEO James Cory Rellas is in the firing line after his company exposed about 2.5 million customers' personal information in a computer security blunder. The company and its CEO must put better security controls in place, require employees to use multi-factor authentication, and provide security training for its employees.
The massive amounts of digital data being bought and sold - or sometimes freely shared - poses a grave national security risk, according to a former US policymaker and diplomat. "There's a national security loophole from the proliferation of consumer data when we have so much information about Americans floating around the internet," she said.
The Federal Trade Commission has sued Kochava, a large location data provider, for allegedly selling data that the FTC says can track people at reproductive health clinics and places of worship, according to an announcement from the agency. "Defendant's violations are in connection with acquiring consumers' precise geolocation data and selling the data in a format that allows entities to track the consumers' movements to and from sensitive locations, including, among others, locations associated with medical care, reproductive health, religious worship, mental health temporary shelters, such as shelters for the homeless, domestic violence survivors, or other at risk populations, and addiction recovery," the lawsuit reads.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Monday said it filed a lawsuit against Kochava, a location data broker, for collecting and selling precise geolocation data gathered from consumers' mobile devices. The complaint alleges that the U.S. company amasses a "Wealth of information" about users by purchasing data from other data brokers to sell to its own clients.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission warned this week that it will crack down on tech companies' illegal use and sharing of highly sensitive data and false claims about data anonymization. "While many consumers may happily offer their location data in exchange for real-time crowd-sourced advice on the fastest route home, they likely think differently about having their thinly-disguised online identity associated with the frequency of their visits to a therapist or cancer doctor," FTC's Kristin Cohen said.