And The Beat Goes On…

“You never know whom, from where, or what will occur but there is a war going on out there,” says Tero Pollanen, a well-known cyber crime and fraud prevention specialist. The scam of the day comes to you from Bhubaneswar, India where we read of a graduate engineer being arrested for hacking a victim’s credit card and going on a spending spree over the last several months. Over a three month period, he defrauded the victim of nearly £1100

on internet adult sites alone, in addition to purchasing a cell phone and other assorted electronics.

An ongoing investigation is in progress to see it the arrested was simply acting independently or if he is part of an organized crime group. It is sad that here we witness a bright mind whom we would expect to trust and aid in the prevention of such affairs, rather falls into temptation and thus violates our trust.

Ref.: http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/engineer-held-for-credit-card-fraud-251903

Israel Hack Attack

At a time when credit card fraud and online hacking scams are becoming increasingly common, Israel has become the latest victim. On Saturday, January 7, the country announced that the details of thousands of credit cards had been publicised online.

The exact details and figures of the attack vary according to sources; whilst the credit card companies say the details of  around 25,000 cards (of which over 6,000 were current) had been exposed, the government says as many as 400,000 Israeli people have had their private information compromised. Israel is not used to attacks of this nature, and it is believed that this is the worst of its kind the country has seen. This kind of attack is not uncommon, a large cybercrime wave has recently swept across China, as reported on Tero Pollanen’s Online Fraud blog reports.

The hacker claiming responsibility, OxOmar, said he lives in Saudi Arabia. After initial investigations, there is apparently some evidence that it is infact a teenager living in Mexico. As yet, it is not thought that help from Mexican authorities has been sought.

Israel, clearly riled, has hit back strongly, "vowing to retaliate" according to the BBC. Speaking of such kind of attacks, Danny Ayalon, Deputy Foreign Minister, said they are "a breach of sovereignty comparable to a terrorist operation, and must be treated as such. Israel has active capabilities for striking at those who are trying to harm it, and no agency or hacker will be immune from retaliatory action".

Sister Blogs

Hello All and happy Friday.

I have created two sister sites
http://fightbankfraud.blogspot.com/ to promote awareness of fighting and preventing bank fraud
http://fightcardfraud.blogspot.com/ to promote awareness of fighting and preventing card fraud

I hope you will find the blogs useful and feel free to send me questions or suggestions.

Kind Regards,
Tero Pollanen