fraud

Anti-fraud services company ThreatMetrix announced today it is getting $12.1 million in Series C financing from Tenaya Capital, formerly Lehman Brothers Ventures.

ThreatMetrix will use the money for general operating capital and expansion of its device-profiling business, said Chief Executive Reed Taussig.

The Los Altos, Calif.-based company offers e-commerce companies a cloud-based service that helps authenticate customers to prevent account hijacking and fraudulent transactions on banking sites, Web retail stores, social networks, and dating and gaming sites.

ThreatMetrix creates profiles of devices accessing Web sites and services without the need for personally identifiable information from consumers and combines … Read more

The FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office in southern New York announced charges today against 37 people accused of being part of an international crime ring that stole $3 million from bank accounts by infecting computers with the Zeus Trojan and other malware.

Between federal and state charges, more than 60 people total are being charged in the operation, officials said.

Ten people were arrested today by federal and New York law enforcement officers and another 10 were previously arrested in the U.S. as part of a coordinated takedown, authorities said. Seventeen people are still being sought … Read more

Police have charged 10 people with stealing millions of pounds from online bank accounts using the Zeus Trojan.

One other person was arrested and charged in connection with the Police Central eCrime Unit operation, for possession of false identity papers, police said in a statement yesterday.

The 11 Eastern Europeans appeared at Camberwell Green Magistrates' Court today for a procedural hearing, ZDNet UK was told at Westminster Magistrates' Court. The defendants were all remanded in custody by the magistrate on today. They were arrested Tuesday in various locations in Essex and kept in custody at central London police stations.

Read … Read more

There are days when I really don't like myself very much. Sometimes, I even curse the very ground I tread and the being that I have willfully become.

However, if I write these feelings down, I try to make sure that they're in a very private corner of my laptop or, at the very least, hidden in one of the self-help books in my bookcase.

It seems, though, that Jeanne Mundango Manunga, a 25-year-old woman from Santa Ana, Calif., took a slightly different philosophical approach.

According to the Orange County Register, Manunga wanted to make people believe that … Read more

As a result of the federal investigation of accounting fraud at Dell, the PC maker said Thursday it will take a $100 million charge on its first quarter 2011 earnings.

Dell and the Securities and Exchange Commission agreed on a settlement, which includes the liability payment and a civil injunctive action against the company. It's a result of Dell's violation of federal securities laws related to its accounting practices and a separate investigation into its relationship with Intel. The $100 million payment will establish a reserve as the SEC and Dell work out the final tally of fines … Read more

Microsoft filed a lawsuit this week accusing a Web site of engaging in a new type of click fraud called "click laundering" by getting credit for clicks on ads that were made by botnets or unsuspecting users on a site set up for that purpose.

The lawsuit names RedOrbit, a science news aggregator, as defendant, while a second suit names John Does to cover multiple unknown defendants who allegedly participated in click laundering on Microsoft's AdCenter network, Microsoft said in a statement.

To get around click fraud detection technologies, fraudsters are using so-called "parked" Web … Read more

The operators of The Pirate Bay have denied claims that the Swedish BitTorrent search engine has been sold.

The Pirate Bay was responding to claims made Tuesday by Swedish businessman Hans Pandeya, who announced he had paid $10 million to acquire The Pirate Bay.

"We have no deal with them," said a note that was posted to The Pirate Bay's blog on Wednesday. "We have not even talked to them. Since this is quite heavy fraud and we don't want our users to buy shares or anything like that in a company that is claiming … Read more

Albert Gonzalez, the computer hacker behind one of the largest known identity fraud cases in U.S. history, was sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in federal prison.

Gonzalez, a 28-year-old college dropout and Secret Service informant known as "soupnazi," had confessed to stealing millions of credit card and debit card numbers from major U.S. retail chains, including T.J.Maxx, BJ's Wholesale Club, and Barnes & Noble.

U.S. District Judge Patti Saris in Boston sentenced Gonzalez to the middle of expected prison sentences for charges filed in Massachusetts and New York, which ranged from … Read more

LifeLock has agreed to pay $12 million to settle charges that the company failed to protect customers against identity fraud as advertised and put customer data at risk.

The company was known for its bold marketing tactics, including one that backfired after Chief Executive Todd Davis put his Social Security number in ads to promote the company's service and then had someone use his identity to take out a loan in 2007.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission and 35 state attorneys general had accused the Tempe, Ariz., company of deceptive business practices for making false claims to promote … Read more