Posts under ‘Types of Identity Theft’

Lincoln National has begun notifying 1.2 million customers of a possible data breach, according to a letter posted to the New Hampshire Department of Justice’s Web site. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority was given a username and password combination that let anyone access Lincoln’s portfolio information system.
“This username and password had been shared among certain [...]

The FBI and Better Business Bureau Wednesday put out a warning to exercise caution before donating to organizations claiming to be charities that will send financial assistance to Haiti.
“Apply a critical eye,” said the FBI in a statement, and do “due diligence before responding to those requests.”
“Be cautious about online giving, especially in response to [...]

The Better Business Bureau released a list of last years top consumer scams:

Acai Supplements and other “free” trial offers - Ads offering trial offers for teeth whiteners, acai anti-aging pills, and other miracle supplements blanketed the Internet, including trusted Web sites of national news organizations. The marketing campaigns often falsely claimed an endorsement by celebrities [...]

The Wall Street Journal has said that the FBI is probing a computer security breach targeting Citigroup. The breach has resulted in the theft of tens of millions of dollars by computer hackers believed to be a Russian cyber gang.
Citigroup has denied this has happened, stating “any allegation that the FBI is working on a case [...]

President Barack Obama chose Howard Schmidt to be his cybersecurity chief on Tuesday.  Schmidt is a former eBay and Microsoft executive. His career includes 31 years in government, including a stint on President George W. Bush’s Critical Infrastructure Protection Board. He is currently CEO of the Information Security Forum.
Schmidt will be in charge of setting [...]

A hacker accessed a computer server for North Carolina Community Colleges that contained the personal information of nearly 51,000 people.  This included driver’s license and Social Security numbers.
College officials said Tuesday that they were notifying the 51,000 individuals from 25 campuses that they were victims of the security breach.
Officials said they discovered in August that [...]

According to Identity Theft Resource Center, government agencies and businesses reported 435 breaches as of November 17th.  More than 220 million records were exposed so far in 2009.  Here are the ten biggest data breaches by volume, according to the ITRC’s numbers:

Heartland Payment Systems - Records exposed: 130 million
National Archive and Records Agency - Records exposed: 76 [...]

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning the public about false emails asking people to register for a CDC-sponsored mandatory vaccination program.Â
“Users that click on the email are at risk of having malicious code installed on their system,” according to the CDC announcement.
The fraudulent e-mails claim to be from the U.S. Centers for [...]

Authorities arrest a bank teller and five others involved in an identity theft ring in South Florida, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.  The arrests were the latest made in Operation Felony Lane, a multiagency investigation of organized identity theft rings in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties.
The teller at BankAtlantic branch stole personal information [...]

On Tuesday a U.S. grand jury indicted eight individuals for using sophisticated hacking techniques to defeat encryption safeguards used by RBS WorldPay, a subsidiary of the Royal Bank of Scotland.  The hackers were able to transfer $9.4 million dollars to co-conspirators around the world.
The hackers focused on payroll debit cards which allow employees to withdraw their salaries [...]