victim

A woman from Malaysia was recently cajoled out of $366,000 by a Facebook con artist, according to reports. And while several arrests have been made, most of the cash remains at large. Overseas 'British Citizen' in Need of Bank Account The man behind ... the scheme allegedly told the woman he was a British citizen in need of access to a bank account in order to cash in a $1.53 million contract with Malaysia's national oil and gas company, Petronas. Here was the kicker: the man in question said he couldn't afford the service and insurance charges associated with the agreement, and was looking for ... (view more)

We recently reported on a story in which the identities of 3.3 million loan borrowers were hacked , including the names, addresses, social security numbers of these individuals. Now, figures from the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse suggest that more ... than 347 million records have been breached since 2005. So, what happens if you aren't aware that your identity has been compromised? The short answer is that someone will likely try to use your identity to commit fraud. For example, you might receive a bill for a credit card expense that you knew nothing about. It could ruin your credit score, or ... (view more)

New malware being used by cyber criminals takes hacking to a whole new level: it hides evidence of a fraud victim's dwindling bank balance by rewriting online bank statements on-the-fly. The hack employs a Trojan horse program installed on a ... victim's machine that alters HTML (hyper text markup language) coding before it's displayed in a user's web browser. The altered HTML code either erases evidence of a money transfer transaction entirely from a bank statement, or it alters the total amount of money balances and transfers. The hack buys cyber criminals more time before a victim finds out he ... (view more)

In computing, phishing (also known as carding and spoofing) is the act of attempting to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy person or business with a real need for ... such information in a seemingly official electronic notification or message, such as an email or an instant message. It is a form of a social engineering attack. The term phishing comes from the fact that Internet scammers are using increasingly sophisticated lures as they "fish" for users' financial information and password data. With the growing ... (view more)