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Finance

Assets frozen for accused pump-and-dumpers

Dan Kaplan March 17, 2010

A U.S. District Court judge on Monday ordered the assets frozen for a Russian man, his company BroCo Investments and his co-conspirators. The defendants are accused of using stolen credentials to access online brokerage accounts to boost the share prices of thinly traded stocks, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission complaint. The 36-year-old ringleader, Valery Maltsev, and his cohorts purchased unauthorized stock orders on behalf of the victims, a move that inflated the share prices. Then, the defendants, who personally owned the same stocks, sold their positions at "artificially inflated prices." The scam resulted in $255,532 in ill-gotten gains and was a violation of federal laws, according to the SEC. — DK

Newly discovered Zeus spinoff botnet has wide impact

Angela Moscaritolo February 18, 2010

The "Kneber" botnet is made up of 74,126 machines from nearly 2,500 organizations that were infected with a variant of Zeus, according to researchers at a network security firm.

13 years in prison cometh for the "Iceman" hacker

Dan Kaplan February 16, 2010

A San Francisco-based hacker accused of stealing and then selling hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers must spend 13 years behind bars, a federal judge has ruled.

Critical Infrastructure encounters the most web malware, report

Angela Moscaritolo February 11, 2010

Companies in the energy and oil sectors experienced a 356 percent higher rate of data-theft trojans in 2009 compared to other verticals, according to Scan Safe's newly released Global Threat Report.

ID theft still on the rise, but victims respond faster

Dan Kaplan February 10, 2010

Incidents of identity fraud and the total cost of fraud once again climbed last year, but consumers are becoming better equipped to respond to the occurrences of theft, according to a report released Wednesday by Javelin Strategy & Research.

New "Bugat" trojan harvesting banking credentials

Angela Moscaritolo February 09, 2010

A new banking trojan has arrived on the scene and it uses unique features to steal login information, researchers at SecureWorks said Tuesday.

Financial services firm notifies 1.2 million of breach

Angela Moscaritolo January 19, 2010

Lincoln National Corp. (LNC), a Radnor, Pa.-based financial services organization, revealed early this month that a vulnerability in its portfolio information system could have caused the personal records of more than one million individuals to be inappropriately accessed.

Romanian accused of email address theft pleads guilty

Dan Kaplan January 15, 2010

Another Romanian citizen has admitted to his role in a massive phishing campaign that delivered fraudulent emails to victims, prosecutors in Connecticut announced Thursday.

N.Y.-based Suffolk County National Bank server hacked

Angela Moscaritolo January 13, 2010

A hacker recently accessed a computer server hosting the online banking system of the Long Island, N.Y.-based Suffolk County National Bank (SCNB), putting customer login information at risk.

Heartland settles with Visa; funds to go to issuing banks

Dan Kaplan January 08, 2010

Breached processor Heartland Payment Systems has agreed to a settlement with Visa worth up to $60 million.

Parties agree to settlement over Countrywide data breach

Dan Kaplan December 29, 2009

A federal judge in Kentucky has granted preliminary approval to settle a class-action lawsuit relating to a data breach that pinned millions of Countrywide Financial customers against the mortgage company.

Citigroup: ACH or a different kind of federal bailout?

Dan Kaplan December 22, 2009

Just how true is a Wall Street Journal report that Citigroup lost tens of millions of dollars to hackers? Let's put our conspiracy theory goggles on.

Citibank refutes reported hack by Russian gang

Greg Masters December 22, 2009

Citigroup is denying a report on Tuesday that its systems were breached of tens of millions of dollars.

Security spend to rise

Angela Moscaritolo December 09, 2009

IT spending is likely to increase for many organizations in 2010, according to a survey released last week by investment bank Pacific Crest Securities. In the survey of 80 CIOs, 71 percent of respondents said they plan to increase their 2010 IT budgets, with server investment ranking as the top priority, followed by security. Forty-eight percent of respondents, meanwhile, said security spending is likely to increase the most on a dollar basis in 2010. — AM

Web attacks are financial boon for crooks, Cisco finds

Angela Moscaritolo December 08, 2009

Spam and spyware still are profitable for cybercriminals, but the big money is in banking trojans and other web exploits, Cisco's annual security report has found.

U.K. police charge pair with connection to Zeus trojan

Dan Kaplan November 18, 2009

The malevolent Zeus trojan, which aims to steal bank account credentials from infected computers, has taken a blow now that two people have been arrested in connection with its distribution.

ATM thief pleads guilty

Dan Kaplan November 17, 2009

A Romanian man admitted Monday to his role in a scheme that placed skimming devices on ATMs to steal customer bank account numbers and PINs, prosecutors in Connecticut announced. Victor Constantin, 23, pleaded guilty to one count each of bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. He and co-conspirators used the devices, which included pinhole cameras, to capture the data encoded on the magnetic stripe of the bank cards, as well as PINs that victims punched in to the cash machines. They used this information to create fake cards, resulting in theft of $150,000 from Bank of America. Constantin faces up to 32 years in prison. — DK

New Verizon Wireless-themed Zeus campaign hits

Angela Moscaritolo November 16, 2009

A wave of spam over the weekend, which appeared to come from Verizon Wireless, was instead propagating the information-stealing Zbot trojan.

International cybergang charged with RBS Worldpay hack

Dan Kaplan November 10, 2009

A group of overseas hackers have been indicted in connection with a coordinated cyberheist that resulted in $9 million of ATM withdrawals in a 12-hour period.

FBI: Money mule scams top $100 million

Angela Moscaritolo November 04, 2009

The FBI is dealing with new cases every week of sophisticated banking trojans being installed on PCs to swindle companies out of large amounts of money, the agency said this week.

Judge denies lawsuit deal over TD Ameritrade breach

Dan Kaplan October 26, 2009

A federal judge did not sign off on an agreement that would have settled a lawsuit filed against TD Ameritrade over a major breach announced in 2007.

Survey: ID theft tops list of American's security concerns

Angela Moscaritolo October 20, 2009

Sixty-five percent of American respondents said they were "seriously concerned" about unauthorized access or misuse of their personal information, while 47 percent felt the same about H1N1.

Zeus phishing wave targets Outlook Web Access users

Dan Kaplan October 15, 2009

The masterminds behind the Zeus trojan are continuing efforts to target corporate users with the hope of gaining access to business bank accounts.

Schwarzenegger negs update to California breach law

Dan Kaplan October 15, 2009

In an apparent surprise move, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rebuffed a bill that would have updated the 2003 landmark California data breach notification law.

JP Morgan breach query

Dan Kaplan October 08, 2009

Two U.S. congressmen sent a letter Wednesday to James Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, that demanded details surrounding the recent loss of a data tape containing personal information on customers of the financial services firm. Republican Reps. Joe Barton of Texas and George Radanovich of California want to know how many customers were impacted, how many so far have been notified, whether all have been offered one year of free credit monitoring services and what those services entail. The tape went missing from one of JP Morgan Chase's off-site storage facilities, according to the letter. The lawmakers set an Oct. 31 deadline for a response. — DK

FBI nets nearly 100 alleged U.S., Egyptian phishers

Dan Kaplan October 08, 2009

The FBI bust of a massive phishing ring, announced Wednesday, marked the first time U.S. and Egyptian authorities have ever worked together on a cybercrime case.

Payroll services firm PayChoice breached

Angela Moscaritolo October 01, 2009

Attackers used information obtained from a breach to craft targeted messages aimed at persuading users to download an information-stealing trojan.

URLZone touted as most sophisticated banking trojan yet

Angela Moscaritolo September 30, 2009

The trojan not only retrieves banking credentials but also is directed to steal money from compromised accounts, often making it appear to the victim that it took less than it actually did.

Number of phishing URLs at all-time high

Angela Moscaritolo September 28, 2009

More than 150,000 phishing URLs were established during Q2 of 2009, surpassing previous record-high levels during the first quarter of 2007.

Actimize buys Fortent

Dan Kaplan September 01, 2009

Actimize, provider of anti-fraud solutions for financial firms, announced Monday that it has acquired its biggest competitor, Fortent, for $73.5 million. The deal will enable New York-based Actimize to offer customers an "integrated platform" for money laundering prevention, brokerage compliance and case and investigation management, according to a news release. The company, a subsidiary of NICE Systems, is expected to generate $100 million in business in 2010. Fortent, also based in New York, was founded in 1993 and is best known for creating statistically based anti-money laundering technology. — DK