cybercrime

Theft of 44K credit cards is tip of the iceberg, police say

In an international hacking case, a Dutch man appeared in U.S. federal court today and pled not guilty to stealing at least 44,000 credit card numbers, according to the Associated Press.

Apparently, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

David Benjamin Schrooten, aka "Fortezza," is being targeted by federal prosecutors for allegedly hacking into computers and stealing massive amounts of credit card numbers. Once he obtained the numbers, he allegedly sold them in bulk quantities via different Web sites. The 44,000 is reportedly from just one sale.

Police caught onto Schrooten's alleged heist … Read more

Lockheed to head up Pentagon's Cyber Crime Center

Lockheed Martin announced today it received millions of dollars to begin heading up the Pentagon's Cyber Crime Center. According to Reuters, the company won a $454 million contract from the government to help the military facility investigate the increasing number of cyber threats.

"Because of its size and importance, the [Department of Defense] is targeted by cyber criminals ranging from terrorists to spies to identity thieves," Lockheed told Reuters.

The security company's team of experts plans to assist the government in dealing with cyberattacks and crime by providing technical, functional, and managerial support to the center. … Read more

U.K. Ministry of Defense tries to play catch up with hackers

The British military's head of cybersecurity, Jonathan Shaw, admitted that there have been a number of successful attacks into the Ministry of Defense's computer systems, according to the Guardian.

"The number of serious incidents is quite small, but it is there," Shaw told the Guardian in a final interview before he retires. "And those are the ones we know about. The likelihood is there are problems in there we don't know about."

He wouldn't say how many attacks there have been, but he did emphasize that it was serious enough to make … Read more

This Day in Tech: Obama signs debt limit bill; ZocDoc announces $50M funding round

Too busy to keep up with the tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET for Tuesday, August 2.

• Finally, President Obama signs debt limit bill after nasty fight to avert economic catastrophe Tuesday. According to CBS News, Obama said the deal to cut spending and increase the nation's $14.3 trillion debt limit marked an "important first step to ensuring that as a nation we live within our means."

• Doctor booking site ZocDoc announces $50 million funding round from DST Global, and plans to use the investment to expand its presence to … Read more

Study: Cybercrime costs on the rise from last year

A new annual study on the cost of cybercrime conducted by the Ponemon Institute has found that the expense of dealing with cybercrime is on the rise from last year.

The study, which was funded by Hewlett-Packard, found that the median cost of cybercrime to the 50 organizations it surveyed was $5.9 million per year, based on a range of $1.5 million to $36.5 million per year. That's up 56 percent from the $3.8 million median found in last year's study, which ranged from $1 million to $53 million per year.

That large median … Read more

EU nations give nod to tougher penalties for cybercrimes

European countries have agreed to tougher penalties for cybercrimes, including new punishments for botnet creators, in an effort to clamp down on massive attacks.

The new rules are part of a European Commission proposal, adopted by the Council of Europe on Friday, which now goes to the European Parliament for approval. It aims to update existing EU rules on cybercrime, introduced in 2005, which cover interference with data and systems, and illegal access.

One new measure is the introduction of penalties for people who develop and supply malware or other tools for creating botnets or stealing passwords. Additionally, the illegal … Read more

McAfee: Cybercrooks target corporate trade secrets

Cybercriminals are increasingly moving from stealing just personal data to capturing trade secrets and other corporate intellectual capital that they can easily sell through the underground market, according to a new report from McAfee and the SAIC.

In today's release of a new study, "Underground Economies: Intellectual Capital and Sensitive Corporate Data Now the Latest Cybercrime Currency" (PDF), McAfee and the Science Applications International Corporate find that the theft of trade secrets, marketing plans, R&D data, and even source code is on the rise, especially as such information is often unprotected.

Based on a global … Read more

New Norton CyberCrime Index rates your risk

A new free tool from the makers of Norton attempts to quantify the real-time state of cybersecurity. It makes its debut today alongside the latest version of Symantec's all-in-one consumer security suite, Norton 360.

The Norton CyberCrime Index lies somewhere between a weather report and the United States' threat level advisory system, and Norton 360 version 5 launches with a direct link to it.

The CyberCrime Index uses a statistical model based on information from Symantec's Global Intelligence Network, ID Analytics, and DataLossDB. At the top level, the CyberCrime Index takes this data and creates a number evaluating … Read more

Laptops of Lady Gaga, Timberlake hacked?

We are all ducks, meekly sitting while those who have the hacking skills infiltrate our mind's eyes, aka our laptops.

It seems, sadly, that among the latest victims of boys riding Trojan horses are acclaimed worldwide singing personality Lady Gaga, as well as other notable performing stallions, such as Justin Timberlake.

According to the Telegraph, Lady Gaga and more than 50 other fine icons of our cultured times have suffered hacking at the hands of two Germans lads who desired access to their unreleased songs and their unreleasable intimate photographs.

German prosecutors claim that among the hackers' haul was … Read more