Consumer Security

In a case that emphasizes the myriad ways for digital data to be compromised, files containing information on some 26.5 million U.S. veterans were taken from the home of a government employee during a burglary. The Department of Veterans Affairs announced the breach Monday, but said there was no ev...

President Bush this week created an "ID theft prevention" task force by executive order, and Internet security executives are reacting positively, if cautiously, to the new federal initiative. "This task force should help improve coordination among federal, state and local authorities. It's a positi...

Based on interviews with 40,000 American residents, the Department of Justice (DoJ) has reported that 3.6 million -- or about 3 out of every 100 -- households were victimized by perpetrators of identity theft between July and December 2004. The numbers differ from earlier research findings and sugge...

In the wake of a string of high profile data breaches reported by banks, retailers and credit card companies, a U.S. House panel on Thursday approved a bill drafted to protect consumers from identity theft and credit card fraud. The House Financial Services Committee cleared the Financial Data Prote...

For years, the vast majority of purchases made from e-commerce sites have relied on the same technology to keep them safe and protect consumers from identity theft. Secure socket layer, or SSL, has helped complete millions of Web transactions, often working without consumers knowing it. When an SSL ...

The recent US$15 million settlement between ChoicePoint and the Federal Trade Commission signals regulators have cranked up the heat on companies that allow personal customer data in their possession fall victim to breach or exposure. ChoicePoint, a broker of consumer data, acknowledged that informa...

AOL and Yahoo are planning to launch a certified e-mail program in the coming months in conjunction with partner company Goodmail Systems. The two Web giants are positioning the service as an additional perk for trusted marketers that want to ensure their e-mails reach their intended recipients. Con...

In the latest of several high-profile cases of database breaches that could be connected to identity theft, the timeshare unit of hotel giant Marriott International says it can't find computer backup tapes containing personal data of more than 200,000 customers and employees. Marriot Vacation Club I...

A new report says losses tied to fraudulent e-commerce activity will reach US$2.8 billion this year as professional scammers target fast-growing e-tail sites that are too large to manually verify each purchase but haven't yet implemented sophisticated anti-fraud measures. CyberSource, which offers p...

Today's virus outbreaks are not as loud as the Code Red attacks of a couple years ago, but beneath the quieter computing landscape is a perilous push to turn the growing amount of personal computers and personal information into profit through cybercrime, the latest Threat Report from security firm ...

With more than 40 million recently compromised credit cards available to fraudsters, merchants are faced with the challenge of preventing the use of these cards on their Web sites. What once was considered a rather insignificant cost of doing business online, has become a highly organized and profit...

European consumers are being driven away from online banking and commerce by fears that their identities will be stolen and their financial resources raided by information highwaymen. Survey results released yesterday by Entrust, a publicly traded digital identity security firm located in Addison, T...

Spam-fighting strategies used by ISPs and consumers might be turning the tide against unwanted e-mail. However, innovative phishing scams continue to target both corporate users and consumers. Users of file-sharing networks are particularly vulnerable to attacks, a new industry analysis warns. Accor...

In sharp contrast to the harmless pranks that will be played on this April Fools' Day, deceptive phishing schemes are no laughing matter. To strike a blow against criminals who prey on Internet users, Microsoft yesterday filed 117 lawsuits in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washi...

Users of Yahoo's free instant messaging service have been targeted by a phishing attack, one of the first widespread attempts to use the messaging medium to pilfer personal information. Targets of the scam are sent a link that, when clicked, takes users to what appears to be a Yahoo site that asks f...