Category Archives: Cybercrime

Four Ways AI Scams Can Impact Your Credit Score

For all of the hoopla there has been about how ChatGPT and other Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications can increase efficiencies and create terrific new content, there’s another darker side to AI. It can also help fraudsters and identity thieves be more effective, too. Let’s review four ways that AI scams can impact your credit score. […]

The FTC reached the largest settlement to date in a credit reporting action.

Was this sufficient compensation? The FTC alleged that some Vivint sales representatives used a process known as “white paging,” which involved finding another consumer with the same or a similar name on the White Pages app and using that consumer’s credit history to qualify the prospective unqualified customer. Vivint sales representatives also sometimes asked customers […]

Want to get your Coronavirus relief check? Scammers do too.

Coronavirus Relief Check Scam

  https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2020/04/want-get-your-coronavirus-relief-check-scammers-do-too?utm_source=govdelivery For now, here are some things to know. You don’t need to do anything. As long as you filed taxes for 2018 and/or 2019, the federal government likely has the information it needs to send you your money. If you haven’t filed taxes recently, you’ll need to submit a simple tax return to get […]

Secret Service warns of scams, disinformation campaigns around spread of coronavirus

COVID-19 Scam Tips

“There already is a high level of anxiety over the potential spread of coronavirus,” FTC chairman Joe Simons said in a statement. “What we don’t need in this situation are companies preying on consumers by promoting products with fraudulent prevention and treatment claims. These warnings are just the first step. We’re prepared to take enforcement […]

Clearview AI has billions of our photos. Its entire client list was just stolen

Facial Recognition Software

The company claims to have scraped more than 3 billion photos from the internet, including photos from popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. The firm garnered controversy in January after a New York Times investigation revealed that Clearview AI’s technology allowed law enforcement agencies to use its technology to match photos […]

U.S. Charges 4 Chinese Military Officers in 2017 Equifax Hack

USSR Flag and Silhouettes

KrebsOnSecurity has long maintained that the 2017 breach at Equifax was not the work of financially-motivated identity thieves, as there has been exactly zero evidence to date that anything close to the size of the data cache stolen from that incident has shown up for sale in the cybercrime underground. However, readers should understand that […]

Justice Department indicts four members of China’s military for Equifax hack

News Anchor discussing Equifax

After the initial breach was announced on September 7, 2017, law enforcement officials and investigators turned their attention to China’s military. This was due in part to the fact that the Equifax data has never been found for sale on underground internet forums that usually involve the trade in this type of data to criminals […]

Amex Employee Suspected of Wrongfully Accessing Customer Data to Commit Fraud

Amex

A former employee of American Express is under investigation by the police for allegedly accessing customer information with the intent to commit fraud.  The exact details of the incident have not been disclosed, but the employee is thought to have wrongfully accessed the personal information of Amex customers in America in an attempt to open accounts at […]