It is being billed as one of the biggest fraud and identity theft rings ever busted in New York, with over 100 people arrested, 85 currently in custody, and with others still being sought.

In total five separate criminal enterprises that were operating out of Queens were busted up resulting in hundreds of charges including identity theft, enterprise corruption, theft and grand larceny.

The ring had been in operation from at least 2010 and included employees at restaurants, at least one bank, a retail stores. These employees would steal the credit card numbers of customers and pass them along up the chain. Additionally members of the ring would steal card information online.

The collected numbers were then given to teams of card and information manufacturers who would then forge various credit cards as well as other realistic identifications. These cards and ids would then be handed out to teams of “shoppers” would go on spending sprees at higher-end stores like Apple, Macy’s, and Bloomingdales.

From what authorities have been able to piece together these shopping gangs bought over $13 million on goods like iPads, iPhones, computers, high-end clothing and accessories which where then sent overseas to places like China and Europe to be sold.

As one of the detectives involved in the investigation said – these thieves have an incredible knowledge when it comes to the technology used these days and that the schemes and imagination being developed these days to pull off operations like this is “mind-boggling”.

via Forbes.

More than 100 arrested in NYC identity theft ring is a post from: The Inquisitr

Data breaches are a common consequence of the online age and they are costing millions of dollars to companies and to consumers. The Phenom Institute’s 2010 US Cost of a Data Breach study said that “the average organizational cost of a data breach increased to $7.2 million from $6.8 million in 2009.” In fact, Identity protection company IdentityHawk reported that there were 44 publicly-known breaches last month alone, affecting 678,614 online records.

In its listing “The IdentityHawk August 2011 Identity Breach Report,” the company said that each victim lose an average $4,841. Recovering ones identity took longer at 330 hours.

In stressing the importance of taking care of your personal information, Jeff Paradise, executive director for IdentityHawk, said:

“Since an identity breach can cost a person more than $4,000 and take 330 hours to recover your identity — knowing if you are in danger and stopping it before it starts is critical. To make sure your identity is safe, you should always know if any of your personal information is in danger of being hacked or compromised. Armed with alerts of possible fraud, our members are guided with the immediate steps to make secure their identity.”

If you think this figure is alarming, you should consider that this report is from one identity protection company only. There’s more out there and you should really be alarmed.

Remember, there are one million cybercrime victims daily and identity theft is just one of its long list of crimes.

678,614 Online Identity Records Lost in August 2011 (Are You Alarmed?) is a post from: The Inquisitr

Dodson, 23, who earned a berth to the World Championships – his first on an international roster – for his third-place finish in the finals of the 200 meter dash at the USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships earlier in June, was arrested and released on Wednesday after posting a $10,000 bond – the conditions of which stated he also had to surrender his passport.

According to Vince Ewing, Dodson’s agent, his client is the victim, as Ewing claims Dodson’s ID was stolen and it was actually the conduct of the unidentified person who apparently used it that  led that to Dodson’s arrest.

“Mr. Dodson looks forward to cooperating with the Boulder district attorney and the Boulder police department during the discovery process,” Ewing said. “We are confident that after this process, the facts above will come to light and a criminal complaint will not be filed against him.”

USA Track and Field spokesperson Jill Geer said the federation was “seeking more information” on the matter.

Dodson’s next court hearing is scheduled for August 26th. The 200 meter run at 2011 IAAF World Championships starts on September 2nd.

Here is a clip of the run that originally earned Dodson his spot at the World Championships.

via Denver Post

Identify Theft Suspect, U.S. Sprinter Jeremy Dodson, Claims He is the Victim is a post from: The Inquisitr

As we spend more of our time online and share more and more of our personal information with companies of all kinds the worry about identity theft increases almost proportionally. This infographic from Reflectionof.me provides some interesting stats about identity theft and your password security.

via Steve Clayton

Interesting stats about Identity Theft [Infographic] is a post from: The Inquisitr

Stolen identities are traded on the web all the time. The information can be as simple as credit card information and email address or in some case complete records. It is this type of trading of personal information that a British company by the name Lucid Intelligence intercepts and then stores in their own database. This database contains the records of four million Britons and 40 million people world-wide, most of which are Americans.

The database is controlled by Colin Holder who happens to be a retired Metropolitan police officer. He has spent the last four years collecting all this data through sources that include police departments around the world, which includes both the British police departments and the FBI in the US. AS well he gets information from anti-phishing and hacking groups groups.

Of course all this hasn’t come freely as Mr. Holder has invested £160,000 into the project so far. In order to recoup that money as well as turn a profit Mr. Holder is planning on letting the public access his database but for a fee.

This whole thing isn’t being done without some concerns being voiced about protection of personal data. This in turn has the Information Commissioner keeping a close eye on the database as it grows.

The legality of the database could be put to the test in the coming week. The Information Commissioner’s Office said it could not endorse a commercial service or make a ruling on its validity unless someone made a complaint. But the privacy watchdog said it had “provided advice to help the company comply with the principles of the Data Protection Act”.

Source: Times Online :: Four million British identities are up for sale on the internet

Yup I can see how moving everything we do to the cloud is going to be safer – not!

British ex-cop owns a database of 40 million stolen identities is a post from: The Inquisitr

The device which Chris built in his spare time operates out of his car and contains everything needed to sniff out and then clone RFID (radio frequency identification tags) tags. In a recent demonstration he drove around for 20 minutes in downtown San Francisco and successfully copied the RFID tags of two passport cards without the knowledge of their owners.

“It’s one thing to say that something can be done, it’s another thing completely to actually do it,” Paget said in explaining why he built the device. “It’s mainly to defeat the argument that you can’t do it in the real world, that there’s no real-world attack here, that it’s all theoretical.”

Source: The Register

Here is  the video showing his little excursion

Currently the range of Paget’s device is about 30 feet but he says with a little modification it could read the tags up to a mile away. Apparently the Feds are not too concerned with this as they say they have no plans to overhaul the technology being used. So not only do we have to worry about excessive government intrusion with this new technology but we also have to worry about our identities being stolen.

$250 plus a little war-driving equals stolen identities [VIDEO] is a post from: The Inquisitr

The children are spending an average of $48US (£25) for every illegal purchase but 5% of the kids are forking over $110.00 (£75) to $221.00 (£150) of their parents money. The research also showed that about 70 percent of the UK children know where their parents go shopping online and a further 20 percent know all the usernames and password their parents use.

Parents are in the dark when it comes to their kids behaviour as only 2 percent think their children would make online purchases without their permission and only six percent admitted their kids have access to their credit card details. However, with 44 percent of parents book-marking their favourite online shopping sites and a third saving their bank card details online, they’re making it very easy for their children to buy online without their knowledge.

- Carrie-Ann Skinner PCWorld

I ever caught a kid of mine pulling this kind of crap I would help the police arrest them for theft, then make them work off every cent they stole from me.

Are your kids shopping online with your info? is a post from: The Inquisitr

LifeLock CEO Todd Davis is the genius who drove around major cities with his social security number plastered from a truck and blaring from a megaphone. He was evidently so sure his company’s identity protection worked, he didn’t mind readily giving out his personal info as a challenge.

Turns out someone stepped up to the plate and won. An attorney found at least 20 instances of people applying for and sometimes receiving driver’s licenses in Davis’s name. In one case, a man from Texas got $500 from a loan company on Davis’s credit line.

Davis himself admits he didn’t learn about the breach until the company called him to collect the loan back. He also admitted to the Associated Press that it’s entirely possible other people have driver’s licenses issued in his name. Davis told the AP that’s only because of the “flimsy mechanisms” used for reporting that kind of fraud — the same kind of “flimsy mechanisms” his company supposedly uses to protect your personal information.

The revelation has led to a string of lawsuits across the U.S. from customers who say Davis knew his service didn’t offer the protection he claimed it would. Davis, however, still insists his company’s methods work.

“There’s nothing to indicate my identity has been successfully compromised other than the one instance,” he told the AP.

“If anyone can find any other potentially embarrassing or business-killing facts about me, I dare them to publicize them,” he probably thought about adding.

ID Thieves Target LifeLock CEO is a post from: The Inquisitr