Generally when a burglar or thief sets out to break into a home their motivation is to steal any item they can sell at pawnshops or to those on the “black market”. The phrase “black market” has always intrigued me. It means doing business “in the dark” or out of the view of law enforcement.…
On the Policy, Practice & Procedures page of their website, the IRS addresses the public’s concern regarding Social Security numbers on checks: “Complete Social Security Numbers (SSN) on Checks or Money Orders Remitted to IRS Issue: Tax Professionals and clients have concerns about taxpayers putting their full SSN on checks remitted to IRS in payment of…
Every time you use a credit card, you increase the chances of that card number being used fraudulently. Cards can be skimmed and hacked in a number of different ways. #1 Watch your card. Whenever you hand your credit or debit card to a salesperson or waiter, watch to see where your card is taken…
ATM skimming, the top ATM-related crime, accounts for about $350,000 in fraud every day in the United States, exceeding a billion dollars a year. An organization called EAST, or European ATM Security Team, posted seized video footage from a compromised ATM, depicting the installation of a camera and skimmer. The video shows how criminals collect cardholders’ PINs. …
Most of us tend to trust the person on the other end of the telephone more than we trust an email in our inbox. However telephone scams continue to plague people and successfully empty the victims bank accounts. Caller ID spoofing occurs when your phone rings and your caller ID displays a name and number…
Stalking is about domination. It is one or more persons continually making efforts to control another person’s life and thoughts by paying unwanted attention. Stalking is when someone contacts you when you repeatedly request that they do not. They watch, follow, call, email, text, fax or continually send mail to you after you request they…
A botnet is a group of Internet-connected personal computers that have been infected by a malicious application, which allows a hacker to control the infected computers without alerting the computer owners. Since the infected PCs are controlled remotely by a single hacker, they are known as bots, robots, or zombies. Consumers’ and small businesses’ lax…
Crime and violence are generally not fun topics to write about or read about. Discussing a bloody home invasion isn’t exactly inspiring, nor does it make good dinner time chat. Events like these are only “entertaining” when fictionalized in TV and movies and make for a gripping arms length “who dunnit”. However the fact is…
“Spear phishing” refers to phishing scams that are directed at a specific target. Like when Tom Hanks was stranded on the island in the movie Cast Away. He whittled a spear and targeted specific fish, rather than dropping a line with bait and catching whatever came by. When phishing attacks are directed at company officers…
#1 Nigerian Scams: According to a Dutch study, victims of advanced-fee scams, which are also known as 419 scams or Nigerian scams, lost more than $9 billion in 2009, almost 50% more than the previous year. (This PDF contains the statistics from the study.) While these types of scams are generally understood to be Nigerian…
