Cybercrime

Barnes & Noble revealed this week that PIN pad devices at 63 of its stores nationwide were hacked, putting some of its customers at risk. The company discovered the hacking in September, and for the past month, the FBI has been investigating the case. Fewer than 1 percent of Barnes & Noble P...

Small businesses in the United States are generally confident about their cybersecurity status, but they're wrong, according to a survey of 1,015 companies conducted for the National Cyber Security Alliance and Symantec. Apparently, SMBs aren't doing enough to keep their businesses safe and secure, ...

In a wide-ranging speech on cybersecurity, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta on Thursday warned about a cyber Pearl Harbor, indicated the Department of Defense would respond in such a situation, called for greater public-private cooperation in cybersecurity, and talked about the need for a pres...

The debate in the U.S. Congress over a comprehensive national cybersecurity program is wearing on, largely because of differences over the roles of government and business in protecting information technology. Elsewhere, however, cybersecurity awareness and research projects are being launched throu...

Amazon and Apple changed some of their security policies this week after tech journalist Mat Honan claimed an identity theft incident involving the two companies allowed a hacker to wipe out much of his personal online data. Both Amazon and Apple put an end to policies that allowed customers to cha...

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has arrested dozens of alleged cybercriminals in an international sting to crack down on Internet fraudsters. The arrests were the result of a two-year global sting operation conducted by the FBI and designed to nab hackers in "carding" crimes, in which perpe...

Social media giants are teaming up with nonprofit website StopBadware to create the Ads Integrity Alliance, which will counter so-called bad ads and work to create trust within the online advertising industry. Facebook, Google, Twitter, AOL and the Interactive Advertising Bureau announced Thursday t...

Microsoft, together with partners from the financial services industry, has hit the operators of a botnet running the Zeus Trojan. Escorted by U.S. Marshals, staff of the companies seized command and control servers in two hosting locations -- Scranton, Pa. and Lombard, Ill. -- and took down two IP ...

The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against telecommunications giant AT&T, claiming that the carrier allowed scammers to use a calling service for the hearing-impaired and then stuck U.S. taxpayers with the bill. While many Internet scams have originated from Nigeria, this case reporte...

These days, cybercriminals are successfully circumventing advanced security controls with the precision of a sniper. In the crosshairs are banks, financial institutions, governments and enterprises. In a recent Gartner survey, 76 U.S. banks indicated that malware-based attacks were a growing problem...

Facebook and Washington state filed federal lawsuits on Thursday against Adscend Media for "clickjacking," a form of spamming that fools users into visiting advertising sites and divulging personal information. "Likejacking" is similar. Users believe links to spam sites are being sent to them by fri...

Thieves have made off with personally identifying data on 24 million customers of online shoe and apparel retailer Zappos. Announcing the hack on Sunday, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh said that the thieves broke into the company's system through one of its servers in Kentucky. Although customers' personal d...

A Nevada judge has ordered that 228 online domains belonging to outfits that sell counterfeit Chanel items be seized, shuttered and removed from social networks and search engines. The case has raised questions regarding the control of Internet fraud in a widespread global marketplace and what const...

Seven members of a massive alleged Internet fraud ring have been charged by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. The ring infected more than 4 million computers worldwide with malware and rerouted online searches fraudulently to websites and ads, which then paid the ring's member...

Victims bilked of their money by fake online ads are not the only ones hurt. "Blatant fraud, like the fake-news diet promotions and other online scams that have sprouted in recent years, only serves to undermine consumer confidence and eventually marketers and business as a whole," said attorney Bil...