Eideard

Police in the United States and seven other countries seized computers and servers used to run a “scareware” scheme that has netted more than $72 million from victims tricked into buying fake anti-virus software.

Twenty-two computers and servers were seized in the United States and 25 others in France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom…

The suspects involved in the scheme, who were not identified, planted “scareware” on the computers of 960,000 victims. The scareware would pretend to find malicious software on a computer. The goal is to persuade the victim to voluntarily hand over credit card information, paying to resolve a nonexistent problem.

Latvian authorities seized at least five bank accounts believed to have been used by the leaders of the scam…

U.S. authorities also said…they disrupted a second scam, charging two Latvians with running a similar scareware scheme that led to $2 million in losses through an advertisement placed on a Minnesota newspaper’s website…

Law enforcement officials would not confirm whether the seizures were directly connected to a raid early on Tuesday morning at a web-hosting company in northern Virginia where they took servers, a move that disrupted more than 120 websites.

U.S. authorities have been more aggressive this year in trying to stem cybercrime and have been scrambling to investigate several hacking attempts on U.S. institutions and corporations.

I know there’s no patch for stupid; but, it seems possible – since there have already been a few examples in the field – for the FBI to place software on a few compromised machines and trace back control of botnets to criminal sources.

Grab and incarcerate the crooks – and throw away the key.

Sony lost $450 million last year – paid Stringer $4.5 million + stock options
Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Sony PlayStation gamers expressed shock and disappointment on Wednesday at a massive data hack in which their names, addresses and credit-card details might have been stolen from the PlayStation Network.

Shoppers at London video-games stores said they might leave the network, PSN, which allows them to play games with 77 million other members and buy games online, while some gamers writing in online forums called for a boycott of Sony products…

Sony warned earlier that unidentified hackers had stolen the personal details of its 77 million user accounts, in one of the biggest-ever Internet security break-ins.

The Japanese electronics giant advised users, almost 90 percent of whom are based in Europe and the United States, to change any common passwords they also used for other services.

It said children with accounts established by their parents might have had their data exposed.

“If you think the gamers are pissed over at playstation blog, wait until the Mums get wind of this,” wrote senior member barrybarryk on the PS3news.com online forum…

Sony pulled the plug on the network eight days ago but did not tell the public about the stolen data until Tuesday.

Phew! I don’t know of any industry guaranteed safe from attack. I have some experience with procedures that appear to work – when enforced with diligence and consistency. I’m not certain about any IT departments other than those I personally could vouch for, though.

Oh yeah – just discussing this with another geek in the family – remember all the crap that’s happened at Sony from the closing of research centers to failed security to snooping on users has happened on Stringer’s watch.

Three of the top four U.S. mobile service providers — Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile USA — are working together to build a network that would let consumers pay for goods with their phones.

Their Isis joint venture, which was formally announced on Tuesday, plans to take market share from dominant payment networks Visa and MasterCard, which currently process most U.S. credit and debit card payments. Sources told Reuters on Monday that an announcement was imminent.

Isis said the network would use Discover Financial Services’ national payment network at its roughly 7 million U.S. merchant partners and that Barclaycard U.S., a unit of Barclays Plc is expected to be the first lender on the network to offer mobile payment products.

“We’re a competitive alternative” to Visa and MasterCard, Isis CEO Michael Abbott told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. Abbott, a former GE Capital credit cards executive, was named chief executive of the venture…

The idea behind mobile payments is for consumers to be able to wave their phone at a machine to pay for items such as train tickets, potentially eliminating the need to carry a wallet…

The venture is a coup for Discover, the fourth-place U.S. processing network, which is trying to take market share after long lagging Visa, MasterCard and American Express.

This already rocks in Japan. We all know the single most effective way for this to catch on in the United States. It’s ging to have to save someone some money.

Don’t expect to see this in anything smaller than a big box store for a number of months.

Cripes! Another one in Massachusetts

The former pastor of a Haverhill parish was arraigned last week on charges of stealing more than $80,000 in church funds, about $25,000 of which authorities say was used to feed his addiction to pornography…

According to a police report obtained by the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, Rev. Keith LeBlanc had a credit card with a balance of $25,000 that was used for online pornography. The pastor told an attorney directing the investigation that he was in need of help to combat an addiction…

Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, said in an e-mailed statement: “Because this is an ongoing legal proceeding, it would be inappropriate for me to comment. That said, continue to pray for Fr. LeBlanc, for the parish of St. John the Baptist, and for all those impacted by these events…’’

That + $3.62 gets you a grande latte at Starbucks.

After alleged improprieties came to light at the church earlier this year, investigators combed through Comcast bills and other church financial records, finding, among other things, that LeBlanc had allegedly forged a signature on an audit slip. More than $4,000 worth of adult movies had been charged to the church during his tenure, the Eagle-Tribune reported.

The archdiocese’s probe included records from 2004 through June of this year, the paper reported. A church audit found LeBlanc allegedly took $50,689 from collection plate donations to pay for rent and car and credit card payments.

After resigning, LeBlanc was sent to St. John Vianney Center in Pennsylvania, a recovery center for members of the clergy.

Recovery Centers are a great place to lie low from the coppers. You can always claim your extenuating mental circumstances are being treated and it would be better for you to stay there instead of in the slammer with the rest of the crooks.

An alleged international credit card trafficker from Russia who sold stolen credit card data has been arrested in France, and the United States will seek his extradition to face charges in this country.

They identified the defendant as Vladislav Anatolieviech Horohorin, 27, of Moscow, an alleged co-founder of the first and only fully automated credit card information online vending site that sold stolen data.

Horohorin, whose online name is “BadB,” was arrested by French authorities on Aug. 7, in Nice as he attempted to board a flight to return to Moscow. He is being detained in France pending extradition to the United States…

According to court documents, Horohorin allegedly used online criminal forums to sell stolen credit card information to online purchasers worldwide. He had been the subject of an undercover investigation by U.S. Secret Service agents.

“The network created by the founders of CarderPlanet, including Vladislav Horohorin, remains one of the most sophisticated organizations of online financial criminals in the world,” said Michael Merritt…

“This network has been repeatedly linked to nearly every major intrusion of financial information reported to the international law enforcement community,” he said in a statement.

Reuters says he’s Russian. Israeli press variously says he’s Israeli – or Ukrainian.

Whatever the flavor – throw away the key!

Shane Jones is among several members of Helen Clark’s Labour government, which lost power in the November 2008 election, to be embarrassed by new revelations about their spending while in office.
Mr Jones, who was Minister for Building and Construction, blamed being “a red-blooded male” for spending taxpayers’ money on pay-per-view “blue” movies while staying in hotels.
 
“It shouldn’t have happened, it has happened, and it doesn’t make me feel particularly worthy but I’m not going to hide from it,” he said.

“My wife is threatening to kill me.

“Not surprisingly, this has injured her. She’s enraged and, you know, I’ve got a very formidable mother, she won’t be happy.”

His other spending included chartering a private plane on his ministerial credit card after a scheduled flight was cancelled.

Analysts say the revelations are likely to damage the prospects of Mr Jones, who had been regarded as a possible future leader of the Labour party but is being dubbed “the Minister for Pornography”.

Anyone in public service had better live a straight arrow life. Between Puritans, teabaggers and opportunist journalists – someone is going to report on the least step away from sainthood.

Throw in taxpayer dollars and you’re cooked!

The number of victims in a credit card scam involving El Chico Café customers – in Melbourne, Florida – has more than quadrupled during the course of the month long or so investigation, police said.

Authorities said the number of victims uncovered by their investigation into fraudulent purchases made on the credit and debit cards of customers at the Melbourne eatery has climbed from 70 in late March to at least 300 last week. No arrests have been made.

Authorities said they first began receiving complaints in late March from the Evans Road restaurant and customers who noticed the bogus purchases on their credit card statements or whose banks notified them of suspicious activity.

According to about a dozen people who contacted FLORIDA TODAY, the scam involves patrons who ate at the restaurant as far back as mid-February and includes credit and debit transactions from retail stores and other businesses across the United States and in other countries, including Canada, Japan, Mexico and Spain.

Detectives last month said they had uncovered fraudulent transactions totaling “well over” $100,000.

A great reason to pay with cash or use a debit card. And using that debit card, check your purchases online on a daily basis.

I only had a crooked waiter pull this on me once and being genetically frugal, I checked the credit card statement – and caught a double-billing from month to month. Run through the system the evening I ate at the restaurant in question. And again the following month – when I wasn’t even in the same state.

A holiday snap from DefCon

One of the world’s most notorious computer hackers was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday after he pleaded guilty to helping run a ring that stole tens of millions of payment card numbers.

Albert Gonzalez, a 28-year-old college dropout from Miami, had confessed to helping lead a global ring that stole more than 40 million payment card numbers by breaking into retailers including TJX Cos Inc, BJ’s Wholesale Club Inc and Barnes & Noble.

It was the harshest sentence ever handed out for a computer crime in an American court, said Mark Rasch, former head of the computer crimes unit at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Altogether, Gonzalez and conspirators scattered across the globe caused some $200 million in damages to those businesses, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann.

He said it was not possible to quantify how much money was stolen from individuals. “They would quite literally go to ATMS and take out bundles of money from victims’ accounts,” Heymann told the court in Boston.

Under his plea agreement, Gonzalez had faced up to 25 years in prison, but asked the judge for leniency in sentencing, saying he had been addicted to computers since childhood, had abused alcohol and illegal drugs for years and suffered from symptoms of Asperger’s disorder, a form of autism…

Gonzalez, who buried $1 million cash in the backyard of his parents’ home, said that his crimes got out of control “because of my inability to stop my pursuit of curiosity and addiction…”

Throw away the fracking key!

There’s a much longer, more detailed account – if you find this crook interesting – over here.

After the Vegas DEFCON ATM debacle where hackers hacked hackers by setting up a fake ATM in front of the facilities security office, I needed to see how stupid easy it was to buy an ATM and just set it up anywhere. So my search began.

I started looking on e-bay and found plenty of new and used ATMs ranging from $500-2500 but quickly determined I didn’t want to pay $300 for shipping. Next was Craigslist…

I quickly found an ad from a bar north of Boston. They were selling pool tables, Budweiser neon signs and an ATM. I took my hacker with me and met Bob. Bob rented a room above the bar and was doing the deed for the owner. The bar was an old relic that was closing and liquidating its grungy assets. The ATM was sitting right next to the bar covered in 5 years of beer. Thank heavens they were smart enough to cover the keypad in clear plastic…

Needless to say I wanted to unbolt this thing as quickly as possible, get out of there and douse myself head to toe in pure alcohol hand sanitizer. After my hacker played with the manual, got it working and determined it was worth the financial risk, we loaded it on my trailer, paid $750 (down from a grand) and brought it home and put it in my garage.

My hacker comes over to my garage, manual in hand, all giggly, like hackers sometimes do and says “Watch this”. He punches the master codes to access the machines data on a device called an eprom and hundreds of credit and debit card numbers just start falling all over the floor…

Here’s the first of a few upcoming videos of what happened next:

This could make you never want to use an ATM ever again. And stay out of sleazy bars.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures

A Congressional panel is expected to approve legislation…that would curb high credit card fees and penalties assessed by many banks that have benefited from the federal government’s financial bailout program.

The pro-consumer bill, which would mean sweeping changes for banks that issue cards, is an important test of the political will of Democrats who are pushing for U.S. financial regulation reform…

“It’s a new era in Washington,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat and chief sponsor of the House bill. “It’s taken three years of hard work, but I’m delighted that we’re on the brink of real protections for consumers.”

Her proposed legislation would halt credit cards from imposing arbitrary rate increases and penalties and certain billing practices on balances with different rates. It is expected to win approval by the committee, and later by the full House.

But it remains unclear whether Democrats in the Senate can muster the 60 votes needed in that chamber to advance controversial legislation amid stiff opposition from the banking industry. The Senate’s version of a credit card reform bill includes tougher language…

U.S. lawmakers have expressed anger that the same banks such as Bank of America, Citi and Chase with big credit card operations, charge excessive interest rates and fees while getting U.S. government bailout from the taxpayers who use these credit cards.

There was a time in this land when usury was illegal. States had laws generally prohibiting interest rates higher than 18%. Now, between payday loan sharks and the greediest banks on Earth, interest rates that blow through that old ceiling – are the rule.

Bank lobbyists infest the halls of Congress like never before – checking out who’s naughty or nice by their definitions. Keep an eye on the vote in Congress on this one – and you’ll see who is owned by Wall Street.