We heard about a new twist all the Income Tax refund scam that is popular with cyber-criminals this time of year. A March 27th email from the Minnesota Society of CPAs, warns about a scam that is appearing on the east coast, but could spread anywhere in the US.
Continue Reading →“…the email scam claims a tax preparer has been victimized [or breached] and asks users to open a PDF ...
When you work in a cybersecurity organization that serves other business entities, every now and again you see something really unique. This one crossed my desk on March 28th. A client of ours received a letter by postal mail that threatened to shut them down with a distributed denial of service attack. They are probably trying to avoid the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, but extortion by postal mail is ...
According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there are seven strategies that will prevent 85% of targeted attacks. To this list I have added a few of my favorites.
Social networks are a tremendous source of personal information leakage. Actually, more like a waterfall. As we learned in the last post, attackers use social networks to perform reconnaissance against their chosen targets. Since few of us are going to delete all our social network accounts and move of the grid, we have to find a way to live ...
Controlling your professional information can mean managing the information you disclose on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn. It can also mean protecting the client and employee information you have gathered through your employment. It may mean securing your computer network from outside and inside attackers, or your website from compromise. It may mean properly securing online assets ...
Certain personal records are a gold mine for cyber-criminals and identity thieves. Highly targeted personal information include your medical records, tax information, social security number, driver’s license, and even odd bits such as utility bills, and retail or airline loyalty rewards points. Any of this information can be sold on the Dark Web, or used directly to get free ...
Almost all cyber-crime is about making money for the crooks. Often this involves stealing valuable information that can be sold. But many criminal gangs are going straight for the cash, and often this involves bank and financial account fraud or financial account access.
Below we have a list of strategies you can use to protect your financial resources.
Many social network sites make it too easy to overshare personal information. An innocent post to Twitter or Facebook, or pictures uploaded to SnapChat or Instagram can help a criminal target you. Online posts that identify your location, your travel and vacation plans, your employer, your home, and your personal possessions can be used by criminals to plan an crime. ...
Believe it or not, two out of three people in the United States have had their personal information stolen by cyber-criminals. The likelihood is that this has already happened to you, and if not, it will happen eventually. And if it has happened, it will probably happen again. Why is this?
Even if you never click on a phishing email, ...
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US-CERT just released more information about the Grizzly Steppe cybercrime group who has been fingered for hacking the DNC and US voter registration databases. The short report, titled Enhanced Analysis of GRIZZLY STEPPE Activity, makes interesting reading, especially if you are interested in finding out more about state-sponsored political espionage. See pages 4-7 for the main story.
The Grizzly Steppe group is ...
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