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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query credit card. Sort by date Show all posts

FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) Issues Latest Internet Scam Alerts

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/26/2012 01:37:00 am

FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) Issues Latest Internet Scam Alerts

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has issued a report based on information from law enforcement and complaints submitted to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) detailing recent cyber crime trends and new twists to previously-existing cyber scams. 


TRIANGLE CREDIT CARD FRAUD:- 

Triangle Credit Card Fraud is a common scam known to affect many on-line merchants. It has been called "Triangle Credit Card Fraud" because there are three primary parties involved or impacted by the scam.
The first party is the fraudster who acts as a seller on a popular auction or marketplace site. The fraudster "sells" a product to the second party, the buyer that knows nothing about the scam. The buyer pays the seller for the product or service. The seller then needs to deliver the product or service to the buyer and does so by placing an order with the manufacturer of the product or service to the buyer and does so by placing an order with the manufacturer of the product or service, the third party. That order will contain the buyer’s information for shipping and stolen credit card information for billing. When the company receives the order, the billing and shipping information is all legitimate, thus it looks like an order being placed as a gift, so the company delivers the product or service.
When the card holder finds a fraudulent charge on their card, they may file a dispute with the credit card company resulting in a chargeback for the company. This scheme is often much more complex as it is often led by overseas criminals who recruit established sellers (often referred to as mules) on auction or marketplace sites to "sell" the products. Once a sale is completed, the mule will forward the buyer information and the bulk of the money to the fraudster to place the fraudulent order. Once a mule becomes trusted, they are often allowed to recruit other mules, leading to a complex pyramid of fraudsters and mules.
Through the on-line merchant community, many companies have been made aware of this scheme and have had great successes with stopping the illegal activity using fraud prevention and detection solutions as well as successful criminal prosecutions.

NEW TWIST TO THE WORK-AT-HOME SCHEME:-

The IC3 has previously reported on work-at-home schemes where victims advised they applied for employment through on-line resumes. The alleged employers used the names of well-known financial institutions and industry agencies to lure their victims into the scheme. The potential employees were contacted via e-mail and interviewed for various positions using Yahoo! Instant Messenger.
In some cases, the employees were required to purchase various software packages to perform the tasks required for their employment. The employees received a check and were instructed to keep a portion of the funds for supplies and wire the remaining funds to another individual. Once the employee wired the funds, the check was returned as counterfeit. The IC3 has received over 80 complaints identifying a twist to the scheme reporting that employees were asked to post employment advertisements on Craigslist and provide full details of a credit card, including owner name, address, card number, security code, and the expiration date of the card. In doing so, the victim unknowingly became a recruiter for the fraudster.

NEW TWIST TO THE HIT MAN SCAM:-

Recent complaints reported to the IC3 identified a new twist to the Hit Man Scam The victims informed that the e-mails advised they have been targeted for assassination and asked them to purchase a security alarm to use if they see suspicious activity. The e-mails were signed by Agent Bauer of the International Intelligence Bureau and included the following language:

You have been targeted for assassination over a past legal financial matters. A hired international assassin has been hired to kill you. All information and concrete evidence will be forwarded to you, but that should be after the apprehension of the assassin. Please do not disclose this information to any body, including any other enforcement personal in your region. Our effort to trap him might be jeopadise , if our strategies are expose by other enforcement agencies behind this crime. From this moment see anybody as somebody that wants to kill you.
The private international investigator tracking the assassin , wants you to purchase our device security alarm, as you are expected to press the device alarm if you suspect any activities . We can come to your rescue through any of our attached security personel, and this is possible within our network close to you in less than 10 minutes.
Please try to cooperate with us. We wait to hear from you.

Recipients must be cautious of e-mails purportedly from any government agency endorsing a product or encouraging the recipient to send money for any reason. The United States government does not endorse products via e-mail.


-Source (ic3.gov)




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Sony: Credit data at risk in PlayStation hacking Network shut down; info on 77 million users said compromised halted

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/27/2011 10:40:00 pm


Sony Corp. said Tuesday that the credit card data of PlayStation users around the world may have been stolen in a hack that forced it to shut down its PlayStation Network for the past week, disconnecting 77 million user accounts.
Some players brushed off the breach as a common hazard of operating in a connected world, and Sony said some services would be restored in a week. But industry experts said the scale of the breach was staggering and could cost the company billions of dollars.
"Simply put, one of the worst breaches we've seen in several years," said Josh Shaul, chief technology officer for Application Security Inc., a New York-based company that is one of the country's largest database security software makers.
Sony said it has no direct evidence credit card information was taken, but said, "we cannot rule out the possibility."
It said the intrusion was "malicious" and the company had hired an outside security firm to investigate. It has taken steps to rebuild its system to provide greater protection for personal information and warned users to contact credit agencies and set up fraud alerts.
"Our teams are working around the clock on this, and services will be restored as soon as possible," it said in a blog post Tuesday.
The company shut down the network last Wednesday after it said account information, including names, birth dates, e-mail addresses and log-in information was compromised for certain players in the days prior.
Sony says people in 59 nations use the PlayStation network. Of the 77 million user accounts, about 36 million are in the U.S. and elsewhere in the Americas, 32 million in Europe and 9 million in Asia, mostly in Japan.
Purchase history and credit card billing address information may also have been stolen, but the intruder did not obtain the three-digit security code on the back of cards, Sony said. Spokesman Satoshi Fukuoka said the company has not received any reports yet of credit card fraud or abuse resulting from the breach.
Shaul said that not having direct proof of credit card information theft should not instill a sense of security, and could mean Sony just didn't know what files were touched.
"They indicated that they're worried about it, which is probably a very strong indication that everything was stolen," he said.
If the intruder successfully stole credit card data, the heist would rank among the biggest known thefts of financial data.
Recent major hacks included some 130 million card numbers stolen from payment processor Heartland Payment Systems. As many as 100 million accounts were lifted in a break-in at TJX Cos., the chain that owns discount retailers T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, and some 4.2 million card numbers were stolen from East Coast grocery chain Hannaford Bros. Those attacks allegedly involved a single person: Albert Gonzalez, a Miami hacker who was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison for the attacks.
The Ponemon Institute, a data-security research firm, estimated that the cost of a data breach involving a malicious or criminal act averaged $318 per compromised record in 2010, up 48 percent from the year earlier.
That could pin the potential cost of the PlayStation breach at more than $24 billion.
Alan Paller, director of research for the SANS Institute, a security training organization, said that even if credit numbers weren't stolen, knowing someone's name, e-mail address and which games he or she likes can lead to expertly crafted scam e-mails. Knowing billing histories can be even more harmful, since they can identify big spenders.

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Global Payments Inc -Security Breach Compromised 1.5 Million of Visa and MasterCard

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/15/2012 05:08:00 pm

Global Payments Inc -Security Breach Compromised 1.5 Million of Visa and MasterCard

Earlier in this year cyber criminals had breached the security system Global Payments Inc. a leader in payment processing services. During breach experts have estimated that more than 50,000 Visa and MasterCard information was stolen. And now after the investigation Global Payments says that no more than 1.5 million credit card numbers were harvested during the intrusion into its systems disclosed earlier this year. The incident only affects North American Visa and MasterCard customers. The Company has, however, provided a larger quantity of card numbers to industry brands to enable them to proactively monitor cardholder activity.  The evidence continues to indicate that the potential card exportation was limited to Track 2 data. 

This type of track data on the magnetic stripe of a credit card includes numerical data such as the card number and the expiry date but doesn't include information like the card owner's name.
Additionally, Global Payments says that it believes that not all of the nearly 1.5 million cards have been compromised. However, the payment processing company has notified credit card companies of all potentially affected numbers so that they can "proactively monitor cardholder activity"; Global Payments has previously said that it might pass on further card numbers for monitoring purposes. Paul R. Garcia, the Chairman and CEO of Global Payments, has apologised for the incident and said that his company is working diligently to conclude its investigations. At the end of its fiscal year in July, the company plans to present its shareholders with a final report on the incident. Once investigations are complete, the payment processing firm plans to reapply as a "PCI DSS Compliant Service Provider" with MasterCard and Visa: after the incident was made public, the credit card companies revoked Global Payments' certification.





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Dutch Hacker Sentenced To 7 Years in Prison For Stealing Credit Card Numbers

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 8/14/2012 02:44:00 am

Dutch Hacker Sentenced To 7 Years in Prison For Stealing Credit Card Numbers 

Another cyber criminal from Maryland get busted and has been sentenced for seven years in prison. He was part of a credit card hacking ring that targeted businesses in Seattle and across the country.  The U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle says Christopher A. Schroebel partnered with 21-year-old Dutch computer hacker David Benjamin Schrooten to steal credit card numbers from businesses across the country and sell them in bulk through websites. In their charges, prosecutors say Schroebel had in his possession 84,000 credit card numbers he had stolen or bought from other hackers. The two hackers operated "point of sale" operations, in which spy software is installed in computers used by businesses for transactions. The software records credit card numbers used. Schroebel pleaded guilty in May to charges of bank fraud, obtaining information from a protected computer, access device fraud, among others. Schrooten, who was arrested in Romania, is set to stand trial next month. 







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Global Payments Hacked, 50K Cardholders At Risk (Visa & MasterCard Investigating The Breach)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/03/2012 01:54:00 pm


Global Payments Hacked, 50K Cardholders At Risk (Visa & MasterCard Investigating The Breach)

A security breach at Global Payments Inc, a third-party U.S. based processor, may have compromised 
50,000 Visa and MasterCard cardholder accounts. Both Visa and MasterCard have sent out non-public alerts to banks notifying them of the breach.
Major credit card issuing agencies have alerted customers and asserted that their own systems are still secure. MasterCard has hired an independent data security firm to look into the hack, while Visa has given the affected account number to the banks so that steps can be taken to protect those customers and to help find the hacker. However, the breach affects all major credit card brands, including Discover and American Express.
Visa and MasterCard are investigating whether a data security breach at one of the main companies that processes transactions improperly exposed private customer information, bank officials said Friday. The event highlighted a crucial vulnerability that could affect millions of credit card holders. The breach occurred at Global Payments, an Atlanta company that helps Visa and MasterCard process transactions for merchants. One bank executive estimated that about one million to three million accounts could be affected. That does not mean that all those cards were used fraudulently, but that credit card information on the cardholders was exposed. The bank official, who insisted on anonymity because the inquiry is at an early stage, said that Visa and MasterCard notified his company on Thursday, but that banks had been frustrated with the pace of disclosure by Global Payments. He said that Global Payments, which is one of the biggest transactions processors, had provided little information on where the breaches took place, how accounts were hacked and other details that could indicate which customers might be vulnerable. This is the second breach at Global Payments in the last 12 months, according to two individuals briefed on the investigations who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Another similar attack was disclosed by Heartland Payment Systems in 2009, a breach that began in 2007 and resulted in the exposure of data on 130 million credit cards. Heartland estimated that breach cost it $140 million in fines, settlements and legal fees.
If you use a Visa or MasterCard credit card, you may be affected by this breach. The good news is that most credit cards have fraud protection, so even if you are affected by this security breach, you most likely will not be affected by fraudulent charges if you catch them early enough.




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Credit card companies broke European law

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/03/2011 06:07:00 pm


Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Credit card companies have been accused of taking advantage of a European law designed to protect cash-strapped borrowers from obtaining easy credit, by promoting eye-catching deals for which many consumers will be ineligible.
The number of credit cards that charge no interest to customers who switch provider is at a record high. But the number of applicants able to take advantage of the deals is falling, according to a financial research firm, after the introduction of a European Union consumer credit directive this year.
Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Instead, consumer groups say credit providers are using the rates as a form of advertising. “Offering lengthy 0 per cent deals is a way to generate massive free advertising exposure via the best-buy tables,” Andrew Hagger, of financial website Moneynet, said.
“It’s cheap for credit companies to borrow money at the moment and the law means they are legally allowed to decline more applications. That’s why we’re seeing a staggering number of deals.”
The number of credit cards offering an interest-free balance transfer term of at least 12 months has more than doubled in the past two years to 54. But only about half of the customers whose applications are accepted must be offered these deals. Under the previous system, providers were required to give two-thirds of successful applicants the advertised rate. Now they can advertise rates that are handed out to just 51 per cent of customers. The law was intended to harmonise consumer credit laws across the EU, creating one market for retail financial services where consumers could shop around for the best deals outside their own country.
Banks had warned in 2007 that if the rules were put into practice the number of borrowers struggling to obtain a loan would rise. The British Bankers’ Association predicted that as many as 1.7m consumers would be unable to access credit or would find that the amount they could borrow would be limited if the directive was introduced. The UK Cards Association said the impact of the directive had been “limited” and that the UK credit card market continued to be highly competitive. Interest rates on credit cards are at the highest level for 13 years. Despite a period of low base interest rates, providers have pushed up rates to more than 19 per cent on average, after changes to the way that credit card debts are repaid. Consumers now pay off the most expensive debt first, which has reduced the revenue available from cards for providers.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.   

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Two Romanian Hackers Pleaded Guilty on Credit Card Hack & Faced 7 Years Imprisonment

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 9/20/2012 03:43:00 pm

Two Romanian Hackers Pleaded Guilty on Credit Card Hack & Faced 7 Years Imprisonment  

According to the U.S. Department of Justice two Romanian hacker- Iulian Dolan & Cezar Butu have pleaded guilty to participating in a US$10 million scheme to hack into the computers of hundreds of Subway restaurants in the U.S. and steal payment card data. Iulian Dolan, 28, of Craiova, Romania, pleaded guilty Monday to one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, and Cezar Butu, 27, of Ploiesti, Romania, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit access device fraud, the DOJ confirmed. Dolan and Butu were two of four Romanians charged in December in U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire with hacking Subway point-of-sale computers. In his plea agreement, Dolan has agreed to be sentenced to seven years, and Butu has agreed to be sentenced to 21 months in prison. The two men, in their guilty pleas, acknowledged participating in a Romanian-based conspiracy, lasting from 2009 to 2011, to hack into hundreds of U.S. point-of-sale (POS) computers. Co-conspirator Adrian-Tiberiu Oprea is in U.S. custody and awaiting trial in New Hampshire. The group used stolen payment card data to make unauthorized charges or to transfer funds from the cardholders' accounts, the scheme involved more than 146,000 compromised payment cards and more than $10 million in losses.  
During the conspiracy, Dolan remotely scanned the Internet to identify vulnerable POS systems in the U.S. with certain remote desktop software applications (RDAs) installed on them. Using these RDAs, Dolan logged onto the targeted POS systems over the Internet. The systems were often password-protected and Dolan attempted to crack the passwords to gain administrative access. 
He then installed keystroke logging software onto the POS systems and recorded all of the data that was keyed into or swiped through the POS systems, including customers' payment card data. Thus Dolan managed to steal payment card data belonging to approximately 6,000 cardholders. Dolan received $5,000 to $7,500 in cash and personal property from Oprea for his efforts.
In his plea agreement, Butu said he repeatedly asked Oprea to provide him with stolen payment card data and that Oprea provided him with instructions for how to access the website where Oprea had stored a portion of the stolen payment card data. Butu later attempted to use the stolen payment card data to make unauthorized charges on, or transfers of funds from, the accounts. He also attempted to sell, or otherwise transfer, the stolen payment card data to other co-conspirators. Butu acquired stolen payment card data from Oprea belonging to approximately 140 cardholders. 
While talking about Romanian Hackers then one name definitely comes in mind and that is Razvan Manole Cernaianu aka "TinKode" who get busted earlier in this year, on charges of hacking into Pentagon and NASA servers, stealing confidential data. Also last year another 26 year aged Romanian hacker faced imprisonment for hacking into NASA servers. 


-Source (CSO)





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Again WikiLeaks Shuts Down Visa Card Payments

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/08/2011 11:54:00 pm

The brief, accidental lull in the fighting between WikiLeaks and the card companies that refuse to allow the group donations has ended. After WikiLeaks announced Thursday that a “workaround” had appeared for those hoping to contribute to the group via credit card, Visa has moved to shut down that channel and reinstitute the card companies’ financial blockade of the secret-spilling group. Payments to WikiLeaks from all card companies have been blocked again since early Friday, according to Sveinn Andri Sveinnson, an Icelandic lawyer for WikiLeaks and its payment gateway DataCell. More than six months after the Danish payment processor Teller shut down Visa and MasterCard payments to WikiLeaks at the card companies’ request, DataCell had made a new contract with the Icelandic processor Valitor,which unbeknownst to Visa allowed payments to WikiLeaks.

“When we signed this contract, it was clear to Valitor that this was for WikiLeaks donations, and they assented,” says Sveinnson. “Visa was saying that they hadn’t ended their financial blockade but people could see they could make payments. So it was very embarrassing for Visa and very hilarious.”

But Visa, which has claimed that WikiLeaks may violate its terms of service for encouraging illegal activity, didn’t find the situation so funny. It quickly shut down that new line of payment, pressuring Valitor to end its relationship with DataCell and WikiLeaks Friday morning. A spokesperson for Visa confirms in a somewhat convoluted statement that “An acquirer briefly accepted payments on a merchant site linked to WikiLeaks. As soon as this came to our attention, action was taken with the suspension of Visa payment acceptance to the site remaining in place.”

That means all card payments to DataCell and WikiLeaks–including MasterCard and American Express–are blocked again, says Sveinnson.
DataCell chief executive Andreas Fink told Bloomberg News that in the brief window in which WikiLeaks could receive credit card donations, it amassed “five-to-six digit figures” in contributions.
WikiLeaks and DataCell had been planning to file a complaint Thursdaywith the European Union Commission against Visa, MasterCard, and the Danish payment processor Teller. Sveinnson said they held off on filing that complaint after it seemed the card companies might have reopened payments. Now Sveinsson says they will go ahead with their complaint against the card companies early next week, and will file an additional protest against Valitor with the Icelandic Financial Authority.

“Now we’re back to the same position,” says Sveinnson. “It’s a strange world we live in.”

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Arabian Hackers Breached Israeli Data Center 'WebGate' & Stolen Thousands of Credit Card Information

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 8/11/2012 12:58:00 am

Arabian Hackers Breached Israeli Data Center 'WebGate' & Stolen Thousands of Credit Card Information


Israel again faced cyber-attack, this time  a hacker group calling themselves "Remember Emad", apparently from an Arab country or countries, claimed on Wednesday that it had breached the Israeli WebGate company's server and gleaned information stored in its Web pages. This is not the very first time, few months ago another hacker group named Group-XP, from Saudi Arabia has stolen more than 400K Israeli Credit Cards. Hackers wrote on the page: "WebGate is considered the 10th biggest Israeli data center. It hosts more than 6,000 Israeli domains and subdomains. Today we are going to publish the first part of its data. We have terabytes of data from WebGate, but uploading the whole chunk of data on our servers will take time, so we decided to publish them gradually." The data published on Wednesday included an alleged list of a thousand user names, passwords and email addresses of Israel Broadcasting Authority forum members. A list of credit card numbers belonging to Israelis was also released, although some of the cards were known to have expired. The hackers also claimed to have breached the page of the Presidential Conference, sponsored by President Shimon Peres, and revealed personal details about the WebGate administrator. A statement by the Bank of Israel on Wednesday said the bank was not aware of any theft of credit card details by any hacker using a name attributed to Mughniyeh. Senior bank officials called the claimed massive thefts "nonsense," 
A spokesman for Isracard said: "A file containing 1,500 data entries was published, 49 of which were identified as valid information of credit cards belonging to Isracard clients. The cards were immediately blocked and a message will be sent to the owners of the cards on Thursday." 


-Source (Israel Hayom)











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Sony CEO Stringer apologizes for hacked services & also promises ID theft protection

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 5/07/2011 12:10:00 am


Sony has promised that its hacked services will be back up “in the coming days”and has joined with Debix for an identity theft protection program that will insure users against identity theft for up to $ 1 million each.
The company said Thursday that it has started internal testing on its networks, something it calls an “important step” toward restoring its affected services.
On April 26, Sony announced that a Cyber attack on its system was large-scale, and had compromised millions of customers’ personal information. It cautioned that credit card information might have also been stolen. On May 2, Sony Online Entertainment, another Sony division, announced that credit card data had been stolen from its servers as part of an attack.
An apology letter from Sony CEO and president Howard Stringer was posted on the company’s blog Thursday night. The letter said that while Sony has not heard any confirmed reports of personal or credit card information being misused, it will offer a free identity protection plan to any affected user who registers for the program by June 18.
The Sony program offers identity theft protection for one year from the registration date. It includes cyber monitoring with monthly identity status reports, access to privacy and identity theft specialists and a $1 million theft insurance policy per user. Sony will e-mail users eligible for the program with more details. The program is currently only for U.S. users; Sony is working on offering similar programs worldwide.
Stringer also acknowledged customer complaints over Sony’s decisions to delay notifying customers. “I know some believe we should have notified our customers earlier than we did. It’s a fair question,” Stringer wrote, going on to say that, “...it took some time for our experts to find those tracks and begin to identify what personal information had — or had not — been taken.”
This is the first time Stringer has issued a comment on the breach. Spokesman Patrick Seybold has been issuing most of the company’s announcements, while Sony’s popular second-in-command, Kazuo Hirai, has been the public face of Sony at press conferences.
Even as Sony moves to heal its relationship with customers, however, a report from CNET warns that the company may soon face another attack. Citing a source who’s seen chatter from a hacker internet relay chat channel, the report says that a group announced they will attack Sony again and publicize customer names, credit card numbers and addresses taken from the company’s servers.

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Cyber-Crime Such As Credit Card & Bank Fraud Growing up In Turkey

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/14/2012 05:18:00 pm

Cyber-Crime Such As Credit Card & Bank Fraud Growing up In Turkey

The rise of cyber-crime is kissing the sky, there is no boundary or as such no limitation. Not only US and UK, in every sphere of the world is filled up with cyber criminals. Recently we have reported that three out of four business crimes in Turkey are conducted online. "The internet means freedom, but ignoring security on this issue is out of the question," said Transportation Minister Yildirim.
Credit card and bank fraud are by far the most common Internet crimes in Turkey, according to the cyber crimes unit of the National Police Department. Officials from the cyber crimes unit said during a presentation on Friday to the parliamentary commission on the Internet, led by Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputy Necdet Ünüvar, that 1,132 incidents of credit card and bank fraud occurred during 2010 and 1,005 individuals have been identified as the suspected perpetrators. Attacks on information systems became the second most common online crime in the same year, with 975 cases reported to police and 1,351 suspects identified. Online bank swindling was the third most common crimes, with 151 cases, according to the police presentation.
Reported Internet crimes totaled 2,357 in 2010 and 2,905 suspects have been identified in the investigations of these crimes. In 2009, a total of 2,871 incidents were reported to the police and 4,670 suspects were identified. Police officials noted that the estimated figures are much higher, but a remarkable number of cases are not reported to police.
"In Turkey, 55 million people are using the internet," Tayfun Acarer, head of Turkey's Telecommunications Authority, told SES Türkiye. Online crimes in Turkey are sanctioned by Law No. 5651 on Regulating Broadcasting on the Internet and Fighting Crimes Committed through Internet Broadcasting. This law, however, does not specifically target online business crimes. The much debated internet filtering system or "safe internet", which kicked off in late 2011, protects against possible hacker and other illegal intrusions in online trading.




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The EU is Launching "European Cybercrime Centre" To Fight Against Cyber Threats

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/07/2012 10:51:00 pm

The European Commission is Launching "European Cybercrime Centre" To Fight Against Cyber Threats
The rise of cyber-crime and cyber-crminals are on the high node. According to a statistic more than 1m people are victims of cybercrime across the globe each day. It says the cost of cybercrime could reach US$388bn worldwide. To fight against rising cyber-crime The European Commission is proposing to set up a European Cybercrime Centre in the Hague to focus on online fraud, e-crime and identity theft. As for the European Cybercrime Centre, the commission is proposing to set it up within the European Police Office, Europol in The Hague in The Netherlands. According to the official release of European Commission - The EU plans to tackle this with a new European Cybercrime Centre , which would warn EU countries of major threats and alert them to weaknesses in their online defences. It would also identify criminal networks and prominent offenders, and provide support during investigations. The centre will use information from the public domain, industry, the police and academia to assist cybercrime investigators, prosecutors and judges.
Anyone can be a victim of cybercrime – it includes:
  •   Online identity theft
  •   Computer fraud
  •   Credit card scams
  •   Sexual exploitation of children
  •   Hijacking of web accounts
  •   Attacks on public or private IT systems
And this type of crime is increasing. Around 600,000 Facebook accounts need blocking every day after hacking attempts. In Belgium alone, internet fraud rose from just over 4,000 cases in 2008 to over 7,000 in 2010. And in the UK, bank account takeovers shot up by 207% between 2008 and 2009. A crackdown on cybercrime will help to increase confidence in e-banking and online booking, and will save millions of euros – a 2011 study put the global cost of cybercrime at €85-291bn. Unfortunately, very few of the perpetrators are currently caught. The pan-EU nature of the centre would ensure that threats are passed on quickly to other EU countries. If someone in Lithuania reports that their bank account has been accessed illegally, it could be linked quickly to similar incidents anywhere from Greece to Ireland, allowing the centre to immediately alert all EU countries to the threat.
Cybercrime Statistics (European Commission analysis):-  
  • By 2011, nearly 73pc of European households had internet access at home.
  • In 2010, more than 36pc of EU citizens were banking online.
  • 80pc of young Europeans connect through online social networks.
  • Circa US$8trn exchanges hands globally each year in e-commerce.
  • Credit card details can be sold between organised crime groups for as little as €1 per card, a counterfeited physical credit card for around €140 and bank credentials for as little as €60.
  • Up to 600,000 Facebook accounts are blocked every day, after hacking attempts.
The commission said the centre will fuse information from open sources, private industry, police and academia, as well as serving as a platform for European cybercrime investigators, where they can have a collective voice in discussions with the IT industry, private-sector companies, academia, users' associations and civil society organisations.



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Three million PS3 users in danger of fraud

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 4/29/2011 10:18:00 pm


Gaming giant Sony has confirmed subscribers’ card details have been stolen in the world’s biggest online hacking.
Following the revelation that 77 million subscriber accounts on Sony’s PS3 network had been hacked into, three million Brits are now vulnerable to being victims of identity fraud scams.
Customers should keep a close eye on their account for any unusual activity
The data stolen by the hackers includes names, postal addresses (including postcode, city and country), dates of birth, online IDs, email addresses, online passwords and other log-in details.
Sony has confirmed that all credit card data on its systems was stored in encrypted form, which should limit its usefulness for financial fraud.
However, other user data, such as passwords and address details, was stored in plain text, and will be open to use by “phishers” and spammers.
Although it took Sony a week to admit the colossal breach of online security, bank industry body Financial Fraud Action UK (FFA UK) has issued an urgent alert to victims.
“There’s no need for customers to contact their bank or card company at this stage,” said a FFA UK spokesman.
“However, customers should continue to do what they should normally be doing: checking their statement and keeping a close eye on their account for any unusual activity. If they spot any, they should contact their bank or card company.”
One of the major worries for UK PS3 subscribers is that many customers use the same passwords for their PlayStation account as they do for other financial accounts. FFA UK recommends they should change these passwords as soon as possible.
Victims of hacking have also been warned to watch out for spam emails - “phishing” attacks - which are targeted attempts to acquire confidential information.
Phishers send out emails that look like a genuine communication from the recipient’s credit card company or bank, with the request they fill in an online form with personal information.
This information can then be used to open accounts in the victim's name, such as mobile phone contracts or utility services, or used to apply for credit cards and loans.
Fraudsters can also open bank accounts, apply for state benefits, order goods in someone else's name and obtain genuine legal documents such as passports, driving licences and birth, marriage and death certificates. 

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7K+ Israeli Credit Card Details Exposed By Kosovo Hackers Security (KHS)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 1/18/2012 11:31:00 pm


Few days ago we have covered that hackers from Saudi Arabia named Group-XP has hacked more than 400K Israeli credit cards and they have openly posted on a pastebin release names, passwords, addresses, phone numbers and government ID numbers and so on. 0xOmar a hacker from Group-XP told "We decided to give the world a new year gift". Later Israel govt took this matter very seriously and vows to treat hackers like terrorists. But this threat of Govt. seems valueless to hackers. Today well known hacker group KHS aka Kosovo Hackers Security has did exactly same what Group-XP has done before. They have hacked more than 7000 Israeli credit cards.  Th3 Dir3ctorY, ThEtA.Nu, & X|CRIPO, three hackers from KHS openly posted all the credentials including full name of the card holder, CCV, card no, expiry date and so in tinypaste. Earlier this group has hacked many high profile websites including President of the Republic of Macedonia, Ukraine Govt. sites and many more. One of their major attack was taken place when hacker named Th3 Dir3ctorY has hacked the Hotmail server, and he managed to stop the entire Hotmail for more than 12 hrs. Today again they have proved their capability after leaking more than 7K credit card details. 



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U.S. Security Think Tank Stratfor Hacked By Anonymous (#Antisec)

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 12/26/2011 05:36:00 pm



Anonymous claimed that they have stolen thousands of credit card numbers and other personal information belonging to clients of U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor. One hacker said the goal was to pilfer funds from individuals’ accounts to give away as Christmas donations, and some victims confirmed unauthorized transactions linked to their credit cards. Anonymous boasted of stealing Stratfor’s confidential client list, which includes entities ranging from Apple Inc. to the U.S. Air Force to the Miami Police Department, and mining it for more than 4,000 credit card numbers, passwords and home addresses.
Austin, Texas-based Stratfor provides political, economic and military analysis to help clients reduce risk, according to a description on its YouTube page. It charges subscribers for its reports and analysis, delivered through the web, emails and videos.
The company’s main website was down, with a banner saying the “site is currently undergoing maintenance.”
“Not so private and secret anymore?” Anonymous taunted in a message on Twitter, promising that the attack on Stratfor was just the beginning of a Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets.
Anonymous said the client list it had already posted was a small slice of the 200 gigabytes worth of plunder it stole from Stratfor and promised more leaks. It said it was able to get the credit card details in part because Stratfor didn’t bother encrypting them — an easy-to-avoid blunder which, if true, would be a major embarrassment for any security-related company.
Fred Burton, Stratfor’s vice president of intelligence, said the company had reported the intrusion to law enforcement and was working with them on the investigation. Stratfor has protections in place meant to prevent such attacks, he said.


Anonymous - Christmas Message Stratfore Security Breached:- 







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Again WikiLeaks Donations Has been Blocked By Icelandic Bank

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 7/11/2011 06:10:00 am


An Icelandic bank that unknowingly provided a way for WikiLeaks supporters to fund the controversial website best known for publishing classified military and diplomatic websites earlier this week has closed the proverbial loophole, according to Reuters reports.

In a story published Friday, Maria Aspan of the wire service revealed that Valitor had agreed earlier this week to accept payments processed by DataCell, a data hosting service provider and a WikiLeaks supporter. However, bank officials later told Aspan that they had not been informed that the transactions would include donations to the Julian Assange owned website.

Credit giants Visa and MasterCard have banned DataCell from processing such donations for months, and on Friday, Valitor spokeswoman Jonina Ingvadottir sent an emailed statement to Reuters stating that the bank "was not informed that DataCell would be conducting these activities when their business agreement was made," and another source told Aspan that Valitor had "blocked the Visa and MasterCard WikiLeaks donations and terminated its contract with DataCell" earlier in the day.

That source told Reuters that less than 100 donations were processed before the agreement was terminated.

"The failed Valitor partnership is the latest blow to Assange, who has struggled to gain funding since the major payments networks stopped processing payments to WikiLeaks," Aspan wrote.

"The Internet vigilante group Anonymous temporarily shut down the public websites of both Visa and MasterCard in December after the companies began their embargo."
She added that Olaf Sigurvinsson, the founder of DataCell, "confirmed that Valitor had terminated the contract with his company" and that when the contract was signed, he had made it "absolutely clear" to the Icelandic financial institution that the company would "continue… to collect donations" for various organizations, including WikiLeaks.
On a special page dedicated solely to donations, Sigurvinsson's company posted a statement in which they said, "DataCell advocates free speech and jurisdiction independence. We plead the public support for the independence of media and jurisdiction; and to bring truth, integrity, dignity and justice to the world… You can help by donating financially to the following organizations."

Further down on the page is a form which individuals can donate by credit card to WikiLeaks.

In addition, the web page claims that, "DataCell is taking on legal case against Visa and MasterCard for suspending its account, for which DataCell was processing credit card donation for WikiLeaks. Please contribute to DataCell legal fund to support in its legal battle against credit card giants for their unjustified and prejudicial action."

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CITI Group Said that more than 36000 Citi cards was Hacked

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 6/17/2011 08:55:00 am





Citigroup Inc. has revealed the extent of the recent security breach it faced after hackers got access to hundreds of thousands of its credit card customers’ information in North America. Management affirmed that around 360,083 North America Citi-branded credit cards were hacked and only accounts issued in the U.S. were impacted.
Citi came to know about this unauthorized access during a routine check up. Customers' account information such as name, account number and contact information, including email addresses were leaked. However, chances of fraud are perhaps less as more critical data remained unscathed. Such data include customers' social security number, date of birth, card expiration date and card security code (CVV).
Yet, customers remain susceptible to other problems. The extent of client information that has been hacked could be used to procure further financial information through illicit ways.


Measures by Citi:-
The affected customers are being contacted by the company and measures have been taken to avoid any such event again in the future. Around 217,657 accounts were reissued credit cards along with a notification letter by Citi.
Other customers were not re-issued credit cards because either their accounts were closed or they already received new credit cards as a result of other card replacement practices. Citi is significantly monitoring these accounts for suspicious activity.


Companies Under Attack:-
Besides Citi, the other companies that suffered cyber attacks in recent times include some big names like Google Inc. (GOOG -Analyst Report), Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT - Analyst Report), and Sony Corp. (SNE - Snapshot Report). The most notable was that of the security breach at EMC Corp.’s (EMC - Analyst Report) RSA unit, which makes SecurID used by banks for corporate networks’ to secure log in. Such a situation raises concern about the level of protection these companies are providing to their customers.

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Sony Online Entertainment Shut Down After 25 Million More Acounts Hacked

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 5/03/2011 04:40:00 pm



Sony Online Entertainment has temporarily shut down its online games service and its Facebook games after discovering the April break-in that led to the theft of 77 million user accounts also affected its system.
A spokesman for the online games unit said the service was taken down at 1:30 am Pacific time on Monday. The spokesman declined to say how many customers were affected and none were alerted beyond a terse message on its website.
Facebook games developed by Sony Online Entertainment including "PoxNora," "Dungeon Overlord," "Wildlife Refuge," as well as games based on the Star Wars movies, were all shut down.
Sony posted a message on Facebook saying "we had to temporarily take down SOE services during the night." A Sony spokesman said the Facebook games make money from microtransactions and the sale of virtual goods like costumes and weapons.
Facebook could not immediately be reached for comment.
Sony Online Entertainment is a division of Sony Corp, the global electronics company that operates online games such as "EverQuest" and is separate from the PlayStation video game console division.
Story continues below
The spokesman, who could not confirm a Nikkei report that 12,700 credit card numbers were stolen from the intrusion of Sony Online Entertainment, said it was not "a second attack" and was related to the April 17-19 break-in of the Sony PlayStation Network.
"In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately," the company said on its website.
Sony on Monday denied on its official PlayStation blog that hackers had tried to sell it a list of millions of credit card numbers.
The news comes less than a week after Sony alerted customers that a hacker broke into Sony's PlayStation video game network and stole names, addresses, passwords and possibly credit card numbers of its 77 million customers.
Sony alerted customers a week after discovering the break-in.
Sony executives apologized on Sunday and said it would gradually restart the PlayStation Network with increased security and would offer some free content to users.

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Digital Playground Porn Site Hit By Hackers 72K User Details & 40K Credit Card Details Stolen

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 3/13/2012 11:51:00 pm

Digital Playground Porn Site Hit By Hackers 72K User Details & 40K Credit Card Details Stolen
Yet again hackers targeted Porn sites. Last month one of the largest and most popular porn site of Europe named YouPorn.com became the victim where hackers stolen thousands of user names & passwords. This time a hacker group named "The Consortium" are claiming to have stolen the details of more than 72,000 users of the Digital Playground porn website. The stolen information includes subscribers' user names, email addresses and passwords. The hackers also stole credit card details – which were in plain text – of 40,000 cards, including the numbers, expiry dates and security codes (CCVS). The hacker group also hacked into the server and defaced the homepage, the mirror link can be found on Zone-H. On the deface page the hacker claimed to be a part of #Anonymous & #Antisec hackers & this attack is a part of protest against censorship (SOPA & ACTA)


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‎pcAnywhere Exploit- More Than 200,000 Windows PCs Can Be Hijacked

Posted by Avik Sarkar On 2/25/2012 04:25:00 pm

‎pcAnywhere Exploit More Than 200,000 Windows PCs Can Be Hijacked 
According to a researcher hackers have made pcAnywhere hackers exploiting bugs in the Symantec software which can hijack as many as 200,000 systems connected to the Internet. Also Rapid7 developer of Metasploit confirmed that an estimated 150,000-to-200,000 PCs are running an as-yet-unpatched copy of the Symantec software, and are thus vulnerable to be hijacked by remote attacks, which could commandeer the machine's keyboard and mouse, and view what's on the screen.This bug has been found just after Symantec took the unprecedented step of telling pcAnywhere users to disable or uninstall the program because attackers had obtained the remote access software's source code. According to an exclusive report of Computer World- 
Credit Card Data at Risk:-
About 2.5% of those vulnerable Windows PCs, or between 3,450 and 5,000 systems, are running a point-of-sale system - Windows PCs are often paired with cash registers by small businesses - potentially putting credit card data at risk, said HD Moore, chief security officer at Rapid7.
Moore reached those conclusions by scanning the internet for the TCP port the software leaves open for incoming commands, running more targeted scans for evidence of the remote access software, then using the number of programs that identify themselves as older than the patched editions to estimate the extent of the problem.
Some of the computers returned queries with replies consistent with specific point-of-sale software, Moore said. Point-of-sale software often relies on pcAnywhere for remote support, not for transmitting credit card data, but by exploiting pcAnywhere, a cybercriminal could control the machine and easily harvest the information. "These point-of-sale systems are an attractive target for break-in," said Moore.
Exploitable Bugs:-
DoS attacks can sometimes be leveraged to execute remote code. The source code leak also ups the risk to pcAnywhere users, Moore maintained, even though Symantec has patched some flaws. With the source code at their disposal and the software's problems highlighted in the media, researchers on both sides of the law will spend time looking for vulnerabilities, he said. And some of that research may result in new, exploitable bugs.
An anonymous researcher has already published findings from his examination of the pcAnywhere source code. Although his description on the InfoSec Institute website did not claim any new vulnerabilities, he noted that the source code also revealed the workings of LiveUpdate, the Symantec service used to update much of its software, including its consumer antivirus programs, such as Norton Antivirus. "We now know how their LiveUpdate system works thanks to the included architecture plans and full source code," said the researcher. Symantec did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Moore's research or Norman's DoS proof-of-concept.



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