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In a feat of international law enforcement cooperation, more than 565 people were recently arrested in connection with a wide variety of criminal mass-marketing schemes. These schemes included bogus offers of "pre-approved" credit cards, phony sweepstakes awards and investment offers, tax fraud, and "419" advance-fee ploys. For details, see http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2006/May/06_crm_321.html
In one of the more high-profile recent security breaches, the personal records of more than 26 million U.S. veterans were reported stolen in May. The data, which was on a computer disk stolen from a VA employee's home in suburban Maryland, included Social Security numbers for all living veterans who served and have been discharged since 1976, and names of addresses of more than two million active-duty military personnel. It is feared these records will be used in identity theft scams. Those affected will be notified individually. For details, see http://www.firstgov.gov/veteransinfo.shtml
On May 24, a subcontractor for Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corporation lost equipment containing the names and Social Security numbers of more than a million borrowers. TG is mailing letters to those who are directly affected and providing advice on how to guard against identity theft. For more information on the privacy breach, including answers to frequently asked questions and concerns, see TG's website at http://www.tgslc.org/resources/customerdata.cfm
A 20-year-old hacker recently admitted launching malware attacks that shut down computers in a Seattle hospital and damaged military computer systems in Manheim, Germany, and in Fort Carson, Colorado. The malware infections were spread by botnets--"zombie networks" of hijacked computers that recruit vulnerable PCs to do their dirty work. This latest security breach underscores the need to defend PCs with up-to-date virus software, firewalls, and the latest security patches. For details, see http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/05/nwhospital2.html
In May, a phisher who targeted MSN customers was sentenced to 21 months for fraud and wire fraud. Microsoft's Internet safety enforcement attorney hailed the conviction as a "new milestone in Microsoft's global phishing enforcement initiative." The convicted phisher sent emails MSN customers in an attempt to trick them into divulging credit card numbers and other sensitive personal information. His scheme affected between 50 and 250 victims. For more details, see http://www.darkreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=95415
Two companies and their principal officers have been heavily fined and ordered to cease downloading spyware onto unsuspecting consumers' computers after a successful suit by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). For details, see http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/05/seismic.htm
This spring, a Russian science university student who used his technical expertise for malicious purposes was convicted of running two virus exchange websites that spread more than 4000 different computer viruses--some of which he had created himself. For the full story, see http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/05/russianvx.html
A new form of hacking made the news when police arrested of a 23-year-old Miami man charged with defrauding legitimate Internet phone companies of more than a million dollars. Edwin Andres Pena is accused of surreptitiously hacking into Internet phone providers' networks and, posing as a company offering wholesale phone connections at discounted rates, routing his clients' calls through those providers' systems at no cost to himself. For more details, see http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/08/technology/08voice.html
In a crackdown on illegal trafficking in credit card data and other stolen consumer information, the Secret Service has apprehended 21 suspects from around the country since January. One of the suspects is a Virginia Tech student. For the full story, see http://www.spamdailynews.com/publish/Secret_Service_arrests_7_under_operation_Rolling_Stone.asp