thefts

Reports: Social Security numbers still vulnerable

The government is taking steps to protect consumers by reducing its use of Social Security numbers, yet with identity theft complaints numbering in the millions, counties across the country are still making the numbers available in bulk or online to businesses and the public.

The President's Identity Theft Task Force released a report (PDF) Tuesday marking the progress of federal agencies in combating identity theft. Steps taken include better assisting identity theft victims and increasing prosecutions and other deterrent measures--federal identity theft convictions increased 26 percent from 2006 to 2007, according to the report.

Many steps have also been … Read more

'Wii Fit' sales to surpass 'Grand Theft Auto IV'

Wii Fit has already sold more than 8.7 million units worldwide and has maintained a shockingly high sales run rate of about 225,000 units per week for the last few months.

At the same time, Take-Two Interactive Software's Grand Theft Auto IV has dropped off the best seller lists with about 10.6 million copies sold, which means that Nintendo's Wii Fit should surpass it in sales.

What's driving this? Women. Nintendo realized that there was an untapped audience of "women and moms" (their words, not mine) that would allow it to expand … Read more

Data theft: What really accounts for it

If you work in a corporation, then you might be interested in a blog posting by Joel Hruska over at Ars Technica that reviews a report by Compuware on how and why corporations lose data.

Compuware surveyed 1,112 "IT practitioners" and found that only 1 percent of data losses could be attributed to hackers.

The other 99 percent? Mostly negligent insiders. The next biggest sources of trouble were outsourcing and malicious employees.

Asked about their employer's ability to monitor and detect information theft, most of those surveyed said their employers did a poor job.

If you … Read more

Data breaches best 2007 record

There have been 516 large security breaches this year to date, according to the ID Theft Resource Center, with 30,382,786 consumers potentially exposed.

That number is significant, because it's greater than the record number of breaches reported in 2007, said the ITRC, which released its report (PDF) last week. Part of the rise is the result of increased disclosure to consumers affected by breached organizations, as required by state laws. The ITRC also attributed the increase to its ability to access state attorney general notification lists; these often contain breaches that were not reported via media or … Read more

People can do more to guard against ID theft, says group

As the federal government makes efforts to protect citizens online, it is encouraging people to look out for themselves as well.

To kick off its fifth annual "National Cyber Security Month," the National Cyber Security Alliance, an organization of government, academic, and industry representatives, paired with Symantec to release the results of a national poll on Thursday showing Americans do not feel very safe online, yet they believe they are more protected than they actually are.

Just 26 percent of respondents said they felt their computers were "very safe" from viruses, and 21 percent felt their … Read more

Take-Two opts to remain independent

After fighting off an unsolicited buyout offer and reviewing its options with other potential suitors over the past five months, Take-Two Interactive Software announced on Thursday it has decided to remain an independent company.

Take-Two, publisher of the popular video game franchise Grand Theft Auto and other titles, said it has completed its strategic review and determined that it would like to continue operating as an independent entity, following a couple of strong quarterly results.

"Take-Two's recent performance demonstrates our potential to create value for the long term. We have delivered solid financial results and expanded our portfolio … Read more

The 404 195: Where Jeff isn't really Jewish

Since Jeff is out today, we grab our favorite guest host Clayton Morris from Fox and Friends to help us keep the juices flowing. Wilson hops on the board and, before we have a chance to get into any of the stories in today's rundown, we plummet into Clayton's favorite topic of conversation: SUPERHEROES! We discuss potential Spiderman 4 villains, Batman hype, Iron Man eBay auctions, and before we know it, the show is over. This show is for supergeeks only!

After you listen to today's show, do yourself a favor and listen to Clayton's own … Read more

How 'carders' trade your stolen personal info

Debit cards and PINs are hot subjects on the criminal underground forums these days, Tom Rusin said on a recent visit to CNET. Rusin is president of North American operations at Affinion Group, a company that monitors the criminal underground for several thousand banking institutions by lurking in carder chat rooms.

"Carders" are the people who buy, sell, and trade online the credit card data stolen from phishing sites or from large data breaches at retail stores. Affinion is one of the largest identity protection companies in the world, with offices in more than a dozen countries. Over … Read more

Report: Jack Thompson, game industry scourge, disbarred

Executives throughout the video game industry may be breathing a big sigh of relief. That's because it looks like one of the industry's biggest critics, Florida lawyer Jack Thompson, has had his voice cut off at the knees, to mix a metaphor or two.

According to a Thursday report on the popular video game blog Kotaku, Thompson has been disbarred by a Florida judge who ruled he has been guilty of some seriously unbecoming conduct.

Essentially, according to Kotaku, the court ruled that Thompson "made false statements of material fact to courts and repeatedly violated a court order...communicated the subject of representation directly with clients of opposing counsel...engaged in prohibited ex parte communications...publicized and sent hundreds of pages of vitriolic and disparaging missives, letters, faxes and press releases to the affected individuals...targeted an individual who was not involved with (Thompson) in any way, merely due to 'the position (the individual) holds in state and national politics'...falsely, recklessly and publicly accused a judge of being amenable to the 'fixing' of cases," and so on.

Thompson might best be known for his withering attacks of Rockstar Games for the sexual content that was hidden in its hit game, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. But he has also been vocal in his criticism of countless other games for what he saw as too much violence and sexual content. … Read more

U.K. crime fighters grapple with iPhone wipe threat

Criminals can remotely destroy incriminating evidence by exploiting security features on devices such as the Apple iPhone, a leading digital forensics expert has warned.

The head of the U.K.'s Serious Fraud Office digital forensics unit, Keith Foggon, cautioned that the ability to remotely wipe the iPhone and other smartphones used by enterprises could be exploited by lawbreakers.

Foggon said: "The 3G iPhone is brand new; there are not many tools for dealing with it, and it can be remotely wiped. It's a bit like the BlackBerrys, where users can carry out remote deletion."

He added … Read more