Your Social Security number was almost certainly stolen by a hacker. And offered for sale in the Internet’s underground. Again. Don’t be alarmed; just be careful. Thanks to a class-action lawsuit made public earlier this week, we know that a company you’ve never heard of with the cryptic (and now [Keep reading]
You might think your humble social media account would be of no use to multinational crime gangs, but you’d be wrong. Computer criminals have dozens of ways to turn hijacked Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Twitter accounts into cash…or worse. You’d be stunned how quickly friend-of-friend attacks escalate into massive crime [Keep reading]
Imagine moving hundreds of miles away to a new rental home, packing up your whole life … the kids, the pets. Signing a lease, paying a deposit, unpacking everything, and setting up your new home. And then finding out that you are trespassing, and you must leave in three days. [Keep reading]
There have been so many hot takes about the Crowdstrike disaster that I don’t feel any need to add mine. But when you see what Delta Airlines is *still* doing to passengers some five days after this one piece of bad code ate the Internet, you can’t blame Crowdstrike any [Keep reading]
We often think of cybercrime as a long-distance nightmare. A victim is manipulated by someone pretending to be a lover, or a boss, or a seller, and then sends that criminal money using some electronic, virtual method. A really disturbing trend I’ve noticed recently is the increased frequency of in-person [Keep reading]
“The cartel just very quickly, easily, and efficiently made an example of them by leaving their body parts in 48 bags outside of the city….They’re good at making high profile, gruesome examples of those who would defy them.” I’ve spent many years writing about Internet crime, so I don’t spook [Keep reading]
It’s the official start of summer travel season which means — take a moment to re-evaluate the cybersecurity of your rewards programs or a criminal could wreck your vacation plans. Imagine spending all year meticulously booking hotels and flights and piling up credit card purchases designed to maximize rewards points [Keep reading]
Right as summer driving season starts — beware fake unpaid toll text messages. The messages prey on drivers’ (realistic) fears of getting hit by an onerous late fee after traveling through an unfamiliar toll authority’s territory. The fraudulent text messages look like this, according to the FBI. “We’ve noticed an [Keep reading]
Just when you think Congress isn’t going to be able to do anything constructive for the rest of this presidential election year, out comes a bipartisan proposal called The Americans Privacy Rights Act of 2024. Its name is delightfully simple; it arrives after decades of failed attempts to create federal [Keep reading]
Maybe you heard recently about a personal finance reporter, Charlotte Cowles, who was the victim of a scam and wrote about it for her employer, The Cut. The headline for the story was dramatic: “The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger.” In [Keep reading]
Bob Sullivan