Category: Identity Theft

  • Just how valuable is a Hacked PC?

    The massively informative “Krebs on Security” Blog published this graphic which is a startling depiction of just how valuable a compromised PC can be to cyber criminals. Often the owner of such a PC does not even know that this has happened, and there are millions that have. Check your own PC regularly for oddities […]

  • Best places in the US to get Scammed Online!

    A report by Symantec (the somewhat self-interested PC Security company) has produced a report that lists the top ten places in the US to be scammed online. The nation’s capital, Washington DC, is top of the cybercrime rankings, mainly due to its high saturation of smartphone usage (second in the country), but the large number […]

  • Big Internet (Facebook, Google) gets serious about Email Scams.

    And this time, they seem to be serious, joining together these powerhouses: * Big Internet: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, LinkedIn etc. * Big Money (aka financial service providers): Bank of America, Fidelity Investments and PayPal. * Big Security: Agari, Cloudmark, eCert, Return Path and the Trusted Domain Project To fight Email Scams, specifically Phishing […]

  • Fake ‘Scam’ Website to Educate Consumers.

    A new initiative has been launched by the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation (OCABR) to educate consumers about the pitfalls of internet scams. They have recently launched an educational campaign that includes a fake ‘scam’ website. To insure to educate consumers about internet scames, with conversion rate optimization strategies, it will allow […]

  • Phishing Scam of the Day (PenFed)

    We received an email today with the promise of a $50 credit to my Pentagon Federal Credit Union (PenFed) account if I completed a customer service survey. The “survey” was sent as an attached HTML (web page) file, which, when completed went to the homepage of PenFed. Apart from the simple questions, the final part […]

  • Preventing Identity Theft by Credit Bureau Monitoring

    LifeLock was arguably the first online business to provide consumer-targetted Identity Theft Protection. Since their start in 2005, LifeLock has provided a useful service providing consumers with the tools they need to help protect themselves from identity theft and manage their credit. Scamdex was and continues to be a firm proponent of organizations like LifeLock and there are many imitators out […]

  • IRS Lists it’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ Tax Scams

    Hiding income in offshore accounts, identity theft, return preparer fraud, and filing false or misleading tax forms top the annual list of “dirty dozen” tax scams in 2011, the Internal Revenue Service announced today. “The Dirty Dozen represents the worst of the worst tax scams,” IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman said. “Don’t fall prey to these […]

  • … and now the FTC weighs in.

    After the IC3 list released earlier, the FTC publishes it’s own list of ‘Consumer Complaints’ for 2010 The Federal Trade Commission today released the list of top consumer complaints received by the agency in 2010. And for the 11th year in a row, identity theft was number one. Of 1,339,265 complaints received in 2010, 250,854 (19%)  were related […]