Fraud on the Internet increased by 33%

Posted by Robert Siciliano on March 31st, 2009

Robert Siciliano is a NextAdvisor.com Expert Guest Blogger

It is a wild, wild web out there. Criminal hackers are going hog wild.

Credit card details for 19,000 Brits have been found on a cached Google page, where they had been accidentally published by fraudsters. Silly criminal hackers need to tighten up their data security controls and not publish sensitive data like that!

According to Reuters, fraud on the Internet increased by 33% last year, the first increase in three years, and is surging as the recession deepens.

Internet fraud losses reported in the United States reached a record high of $264.6 million in 2008, according to a report released by the Internet Fraud Complaint Center, which is run by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center.

CNBC reports that online scams originating from across the globe—mostly from the United States, Canada, Britain, Nigeria and China—are gathering steam this year, with a nearly 50% increase in complaints reported to U.S. authorities in March alone.

About 74% of the scams were executed through e-mail messages last year, mainly spam, while about 29% used websites. But criminals have been increasingly tapping new technologies such as social networking sites and instant messenger services.

The report highlights one new identity-theft scam, involving e-mail messages that give the appearance of originating from the FBI, seeking bank account information, supposedly in order to help investigate money being transferred to Nigeria.

Recipients of the e-mails are told they could be richly rewarded if they cooperate. Duh.

Meanwhile, two scumbag criminal hackers were arrested while spying on children between the ages of 14 and 17 using the child's personal web cam. The degenerates worked together to extort money from teenagers in exchange for stolen images. They allegedly gained access to computers using a variety of e-mail addresses and screen names.

The Washington Post reports that experts have discovered a security hole in the computer code that powers the Conficker worm, an aggressive contagion that has spread to more than 12 million Microsoft Windows systems worldwide. Conficker is spawning new hacks such as scareware, as scammers take advantage of the huge interest in the impending "activation" of the Conficker super-worm by poisoning search engine results.

Protect yourself from scams. Invest in identity theft protection and secure your PC with anti-virus protection such as McAfee.

Stay tuned…

Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discusses credit card scams here.

Robert Siciliano is CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com , an identity theft expert, professional speaker, security analyst, published author and television news correspondent. Siciliano works with Fortune 1000 companies and startups as an advisor on product launches, branding, messaging, representation, SEO and media. Siciliano's thoughts and advice on all these matters appear often in both the televised and print news media including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, Forbes and USA Today. He has 25 years of security training as a member of the American Society of Industrial Security. He is the author of 2 books, including The Safety Minute: Living on High Alert; How to take control of your personal security and prevent fraud. He's also partnered with Uni-Ball to help raise awareness about the growing threat of identity theft and to provide tips on how you can protect yourself.