RSSInternet crime on the increase
Feb 02
Spyware antispyware-com, copyright, crime-on-the, federal, feedback, home, increase, internet, open-source, Phishing, polls, polls-archive, security, source, Spam, Spyware, spyware-news, threat-database, Uncategorized No Comments
Internet crime has intensified in the past six months with crooks cashing in on economic confusion and anxiety.
Consumers and businesses alike are being targeted, says The Australian, going on:
Thieves are sending out phoney emails and putting up fake Web sites pretending to be banks, mortgage-service providers or even government agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation or the Federal Deposit Insurance.
Mobile and Internet-based phone services have also been used to seek out victims.
The object: to drain customer accounts of money or to gain information for identity theft.
More than 800 complaints have been logged by the National White Collar Crime Center in the US, so far this year from checking-account customers in the US about mysterious, unauthorized transactions of $10 to $40 that appear on monthly statements, says the story, and the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Centre, “confirms a increase in cyber-attacks.”
Most attacks to be “scattershot” with spam emails”blasted randomly to thousands of computer users at once,”” says The Australian, continuing:
“Now crooks are starting to single out specific targets identified through prior research, a tactic called “spear phishing.” In these attacks, emails are sent to the offices of wealthy families or to corporate money managers, for example. They address potential victims by name and company or appear to come from an acquaintance.”
Moreover, identity thieves have become, “increasingly sophisticated in recent years,” the story has says Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a non-profit public interest research group, saying.
“It used to be you could pick them out by their bad grammar, but now it’s much more difficult,” she says. “You really have to be careful.”
Originally posted here:
Internet crime on the increase
