The London Metropolitan police e-Crime unit has broken up an elaborate cybercrime ring, arresting 19 people involved in a £6 million heist from online bank accounts.
The suspects are accused of hacking into thousands of computers using malware and then stealing money from people’s online bank accounts. The attacks utilised a Zbot trojan called ZeuS, malware that was recently used to attack business social networking site LinkedIn.
ZeuS is a notorious keylogging trojan aimed primarily at stealing bank details. It is usually installed through phishing campaigns, such as on websites like Facebook, or through forced or unauthorised downloads. It has become one of the top trojans, affecting millions of computers, many of which now operate as part of the virus’ extensive botnet.
The arrests, which include 15 men and four women, were made in London after a number of houses were raided on Monday. They are being held in custody and are currently being questioned over their involvement in the cybercrime ring.
The gang are accused of operating for over three months and face charges of suspicion of fraud, money laundering, and a number of offences listed under the Computer Misuse Act.
This is not the first time people have been arrested for using the ZeuS trojan to steal money. In November of last year a couple from Manchester were arrested for the same crime, revealing how dangerous the malware is and how many hackers are currently employing it.
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According to a new survey, many states lack the proper resources to adequately protect some of their citizen’s most personal information. The NASCIO / Deloitte survey also found that internal and external threats to personal identifiable and personal health information are growing.
In a report entitled, “State Governments at Risk: A Call to Secure Citizen Data and Inspire Public Trust,” 79 percent of State Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) said their budgets for cybersecurity were cut or remain stagnant in the face of increasing threats. “Unprecedented budgetary cuts across state governments and growing reliance on contractors and outsourced IT services are creating an environment that is even harder to secure, and the report highlights the growing concerns of CISOs in this regard,” Steve Fletcher, president of NASCIO and CIO of the State of Utah, said in a statement.
But the problem is not just funding, says Deloitte’s Srini Subramanian. “Many state CISOs lack the visibility and authority to effectively drive security down to the individual agency level,” Subramanian said.
For this reason, the joint study suggested that states focus on governance and strategy to help CISOs receive the statutory support they need to raise the level of cyber awareness in their state, as well as the technical guidance to achieve security compliance.
Another key component of the study said that states must do a better job managing how contractors, service providers and other third party vendors handle sensitive and critical citizen data. Subramanian mentioned that President Obama has appointed a cybersecurity coordinator to address the issue, adding that governors and state legislators should make similar commitments to protecting citizen data.
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Richard Oliver, an executive with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, says increasing incidents of payments card fraud in the United States will soon push the banking industry away from the mag stripe and toward the more secure chip and PIN standard, which is rapidly being adopted throughout the world.
In this second part of a two-part interview with Oliver, a 37-year Fed Reserve veteran, Oliver shares his views on globalization, on the unrealized costs of card fraud, and on the adverse impact U.S. mag-stripe cards are having on cardholders even in EMV-compliant countries. Building on the weaknesses of outdated payments technology discussed in part one, Oliver says there’s little question the U.S. will make a move to chip & PIN. What remains unknown is how the U.S. financial industry will get there.
In this exclusive interview, Oliver, the first U.S. banking industry executive to publicly declare his support for a U.S. move to EMV, discusses:
* Why U.S. financial institutions are examining new payments technology;
* How many U.S. retailers have already silently made systems and device upgrades in preparation for chip & PIN payments; and
* The significant role the mobile channel will play in pushing the U.S. toward a more secure payments standard.
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LOS ANGELES – The scandal-plagued city of Bell mismanaged more than $50 million in bond money, levied illegal taxes and paid exorbitant salaries to its leaders, according to a state audit released Wednesday.
The audit was made public a day after eight current and former officials of the blue-collar Los Angeles suburb were arrested on charges of misappropriation of public funds and other offenses.
The officials, wearing handcuffs and jail clothing, appeared before a judge on Wednesday but did not enter pleas. Their arraignments were postponed until Oct. 21.
Three were given permission to post bail immediately, but five others, including Mayor Oscar Hernandez and former City Manager Robert Rizzo, were ordered to appear before another judge later to prove they would not use looted city funds to get out of jail.
Rizzo was singled out for criticism in the state controller’s audit, which said he had total control of city funds and used some of the money to inflate his salary and pay off personal loans.
Rizzo was making nearly $800,000 a year when he resigned earlier this year.
“Our audit found the city had almost no accounting controls, no checks or balances, and the general fund was run like a petty cash drawer,” state Controller John Chiang said in a statement. “The city’s purse strings were tied to only one individual, resulting in a perfect breeding ground for fraudulent, wasteful spending.”
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September 19, 2010 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — More victims have come forward regarding a case of debit card fraud in northwest suburban Wheeling.
Hundreds of people lost thousands of dollars, and Sunday, Chicago police were offering up tips to help protect against scam artists.
The story is the same in all the cases: residents used their debit cards at a local business and then noticed large ATM withdrawals from their bank accounts.
“They did one charge on Sunday. That’s actually when I shopped at the store, Sunday morning,” identity theft victim Barb Bliefernich told ABC7 Chicago.
Bliefernich says she has only used cash and credit cards since she became one of at least 200 victims in the northwest suburbs to have their debit card numbers stolen and hundreds of dollars drained from their bank accounts.
“I feel very violated. It’s something you read about and see on TV, but you really never think that’s going to happen to you, and now it has,” Bliefernich said.
Bliefernich’s bank reimbursed her the $1,500 thieves robbed her of with three separate out-of-state ATM withdrawals.
Consumers in Wheeling and Buffalo Grove were targeted. Area resident George Gilbert says although he’s not a victim, his bank issued him a new debit card anyway.
“I’m worried about that because of the pin number. Even with a new card, you could have the same problem,” Gilbert said.
Police say they are not sure who is responsible for the illegal activity but say all the victims used their debit cards at a local business.
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Thieves have stolen money through unauthorized ATM transactions more than 30 times since Sunday, suburban police departments say.
Buffalo Grove police said they’ve fielded 20 complaints from residents who’ve said they’ve lost thousands of dollars.
“We are trying to get those cases together and find out is there a commonality, is there a store involved, is there a certain ATM involved, is there a certain bank involved, and find out how these cases are all linked up together,” said Buffalo Grove police Cmdr. Steve Husak.
There have also been at least 15 similar incidents reported in Wheeling, where account-holders noticed money missing from their accounts. Others have been reported in Harwood Heights.
The withdrawals occurred in California, Ohio, Schaumburg, Melrose Park and Harwood Heights, police said. The most common place was California, where six of the incidents occurred.
Police said they believe the thieves are using skimming devices that can capture the card’s account information from its magnetic stripe, then watching or recording a person as they enter their Personal Identification Number. The account information recorded from an authentic card can then be embedded on another card, such as a blank store gift card.
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Those spending habits and not letting your partner know about what’s going on is causing some to call it quits. Houston attorney, Ellen Yarrell, is no stranger to working with clients who are in debt because of too much secret spending.
“It’s very common in family law that financial issues become the most predominant issues that couples argue about,” said Yarrell.
Arguing about money could lead to divorce for some, but what about financial infidelity? Apparently it’s becoming a form of adultery.
“The concept of financial infidelity does kind of parallel with other issues in relationships when then there is a breach of trust,” said Yarrell.
That feeling of not trusting your significant other can lead to serious problems.
“I think sometimes it’s the speculative nature of spending that bothers people more than just the infidelity type of paramour spending,” said Yarrell.
Gambling, drug and alcohol habits as well as too much online shopping can strain a relationship on many levels.
“Day traders, for instance, sometimes can get way out of hand because it’s almost like an addiction to be online to be trading and spending money, and the other spouse usually doesn’t know,” said Yarrell.
It gets so serious that some attorney’s have to hire forensic computer experts to investigate online spending.
“And so the person who’s not doing the regular checking could be in for a big surprise if they start checking and see the spending habits of the other person,” said Yarrell.
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Alistair Veen was puzzled when he arrived at his restaurant one Saturday morning to see the door wrenched open and his touch-screen terminal missing.
His wine bottles and point-of-sale pin pad were where he had left them the night before. But all that remained of the screen that servers use to input orders were a few severed wires.
“There was open expensive vodka and expensive wine sitting seven feet from where he cut that, and had no interest in it whatsoever,” said Veen, head chef of South Surrey’s Tap Restaurant.
When Veen called Vivonet Inc., the Burnaby company that sold him the system, he was told that touch screens are often pinched because credit-card information can be stored on them — and if it is, it’s vauable to thieves.
Luckily for Veen and co-owner Les Pereira, their staff only swipe gift cards on the touch screen, not debit or credit cards. Even if they did, Vivonet’s models, called Halo, don’t collect that data anyway.
But police say many other retailers do swipe credit cards on their touch screens, and many may be unaware that their machines are wrongly collecting personal financial information.
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A third of small and medium businesses surveyed by Panda Security have been hit by malware from social networks, according to a study released on Wednesday.
Panda’s “Social Media Risk Index for Small to Medium Sized Businesses” (PDF) also found that 35 percent of the companies hurt by social-media malware suffered financial losses, with more than a third losing in excess of $5,000. Further, a quarter of the businesses said they lost sensitive data due to employees who violated company policy by revealing certain information via a social network.
The report was based on surveys Panda conducted in July of 315 small and medium businesses (SMBs) with up to 1,000 employees.
Among social networks, Facebook took the dubious honor of being the top spot for malware infections (71 percent) and privacy violations (73 percent). Next on the list was YouTube followed by Twitter. Those businesses that took financial losses from malware attacks also tagged Facebook as the most problematic site, followed by Twitter, YouTube, and finally LinkedIn.
Despite the threat of social malware, many companies still see social networks as a huge benefit to business. Among those surveyed, 78 percent said they use Facebook, Twitter, and other sites to conduct research, improve customer service, push marketing and PR initiatives, and ultimately boost sales. In these areas, Facebook again proved the most popular–69 percent of the SMBs said they have active Facebook accounts. Twitter was the next most popular social-media tool, followed by YouTube and finally LinkedIn.
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Financial adviser to the stars Kenneth I. Starr, Starr & Co. pled guilty before the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Friday to ripping off $50 million from A-listers including Wesley Snipes, Sylvester Stallone, Uma Thurman, Nora Ephron and Al Pacino.
The 66-year-old Starr told the judge he improperly used his clients’ money for his own purposes. His attorney, Flora Edwards, told the court: “He’s committed a horrendous error in judgement. This was truly a horrendous error. I don’t think it was greed. He made a real bad mistake, and he’s deeply sorry for it.”
The three counts that Starr pled guilty to – wire fraud, money laundering and adviser fraud – carry a sentence of up to 12 years. He still faces 20 additional counts and charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Preet Bharara said: “Kenneth Starr is a tale of fiction and fraud, in which he played the role of legitimate investment adviser to a cast of unsuspecting victims.”
When prosecutors arrested Starr on May 27, they found him hiding in a closet of his $7.5 million Upper East Side condominium, which the government has since seized. His sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 15.
Starr’s fourth wife, former Scores stripper Diane Passage, failed to show up for her husband’s court appearance on Friday. Her lawyer, Giovanni DiStefano, told The New York Post Passage needed to look after her 12-year-old son. A recent Vanity Fair feature on Starr and his misdeeds paints the picture of a man who knew how to tell his celebrity clients what they wanted to hear about the far reaches of their wealth, and whose own personal greed continued to grow as he remarried.
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STOCK MARKETS
Indexes maintain upward trend on takeovers; retail news today
Investors looking for reassurances about the health of the global economy received just that Monday. Stocks extended their rally into a third week after global regulators agreed to new rules for how much money banks must hold in reserves, China reported its economy remains robust, and companies announced a flurry of new takeovers.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 81 points for its eighth gain in the past nine days. The Dow did close off its high after some traders pulled money out of retail stocks ahead of the government’s monthly retail sales report due today. But overall sentiment remained positive, pushing major indexes to their highest closes in more than a month and the broader Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index back into positive territory for the year.
ACQUISITIONS
After 3Par, H-P keeps spending: $1.5 billion for security provider
Hewlett-Packard Co. wants to have the answer to all of its customers’ technology problems. So it is buying network-security provider ArcSight Inc. to help customers respond to the growing threat posed by hackers, computer viruses and digital fraud.
The $1.5 billion deal extends H-P’s recent spate of acquisitions and could help signal that even after ousting Mark Hurd as CEO, the company hasn’t lost its footing in the effort to build beyond the personal-computer business. The new deal came just weeks after H-P won a bidding contest with Dell Inc. over the data-storage company 3Par Inc., agreeing to pay $2.07 billion, or $33 per share.
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s efforts to defend its reputation just became a lot harder.
Chairman and CEO Lloyd Blankfein, 55, spent the last year trying to defend the firm against criticism from politicians, news media and other commentators that Goldman Sachs profited in the aftermath of the financial crisis and sold investors securities that went sour.
Now the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission says the company defrauded investors.
The suit filed Friday alleges that Goldman Sachs didn’t stick to its long-standing claim that “clients’ interests always come first,” and instead failed to tell investors that the securities Goldman Sachs was selling them had been designed to fail by another client, hedge fund Paulson & Co., which profited from the losses. Goldman Sachs said it will contest the charges, which it called “completely unfounded in law and fact.”
Friday’s action may be a harbinger of things to come for other companies.
SEC Enforcement Director Robert Khuzami said the agency is investigating a wide range of practices related to the crisis. The prospect of possible legal jeopardy for other major financial players roiled the stock market.
Here’s what the SEC alleged happened: Goldman Sachs & Co. sold mortgage investments without telling the buyers about the role of the Paulson firm, which was betting on them to fail.
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