After the PSN and Qriosity hacks Sony is trying to help protect users from possibly fraud. Sony will be offering all customers a full year of AllClear ID Plus from Debix at no cost. The AllClear ID Plus service will monitor users accounts for any possible ID theft or fraud. If there is suspicious activity more »

Unbelievably, Wyndham Hotels is reporting yet another data breach, it’s third in the past 19 months. That’s right, it’s third. This time it happened between October 2009 and January 2010 and affected an undisclosed number of hotels and franchises. “A hacker intruded on our systems and accessed customers’ information from a limited number of franchised more »

The signature as a means to identify transactions is going the way of the Dodo bird. Presented with difficult identity confirmation brought about by online purchasing, credit card companies are scrambling for a solution to the fraud the new world presents. MasterCard Europe believes they’ve a nifty solution. Actually, MasterCard has two solutions. By harnessing more »

The hacker accused of running a massive data theft operation responsible for breaches at TJ Maxx, BJ’s Wholesales, and several other major U.S. retailers has pleaded guilty to 19 charges related to credit card fraud and and hacking and 1 charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. “Computer hacking and identity theft pose serious risks more »

Three men have been indicted in what federal authorities are calling the largest identity theft case ever prosecuted. The three men are accused of hacking into the files of Heartland Payment Systems between October 2006 and May 2008. Heartland processes debit and credit card payment for over a quarter of a million businesses. Some of the breaches occurred at 7-Eleven and Hannaford Brothers and at least 650 financial institutions were affected.

Three brothers were convicted in a London court for their parts in a fraud operation that revolved around stealing credit and debit card numbers and making fake cards to use them with. Ahmed Charmaga received 4 and a half years in prison, while his brothers Mahmoud and Mohammed received 5 and 2 and a half more »

LexisNexis has sent a warning to over 13,000 people after discovering a possible data breach. The information broker says that a Florida man facing charges in a mafia racketeering conspiracy may have accessed some databases that used to be used to track terrorists. The man, Lee Klein, is said to be part of the Bonanno more »

The FTC and SEC, along with several other federal agencies, are investigating the data breach at Heartland Payment Systems. The company processes about 100 million credit card transactions a month. Over 250,000 merchant locations were affected by the breach, which involved hackers stealing unencrypted data such as addresses, debit, and credit card numbers, and expiration dates. The company has also been hit with a class action lawsuit.

Company President and Chief Financial Officer Robert Baldwin Jr. disclosed the investigations during Heartland’s quarterly conference call with investigators Tuesday, saying that the SEC had launched an informal inquiry into the company and that there is also a related investigation by the Department of Justice. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which regulates national banks and their service providers, has launched an inquiry, as has the FTC, he said.

Law enforcement officials in the UK have shut down an underground website that specialized in helping cybercriminals commit their crimes. The site, called DarkMarket, was kept secret and access was granted by invitation only. Its forum allowed cyberthieves to buy and sell stolen banking details and credit card numbers obtained via phishing scams and website more »

Spam, phishing, identity theft, and online job scams are just some of the fastest growing types of crime today. Cybercrime is a growing business, netting millions for spammers, hackers, and malware authors, and a new study by the Center for American Progress says the US isn’t doing a thing about it. CAP, a think tank, surveyed all 50 states and discovered that 24 of them had online fraud among their top consumer complaints.

Malware, spyware, and phishing cost US consumers over $7 billion dollars last year. Yes, you read that right, $7 billion! Much of that comes from lost productivity, identity theft, and fraud such as the 419 or Nigeria scams. Despite this, the study didn’t find many prosecutions of online criminals.