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Criminal Hackers
Criminal Hackers Get to Momma and DaDa Via Children
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert I’m particularly irate about this. There’s criminal hackers, then there’s complete lowlife scumbag criminal hackers that hack children. InternetNews reports hackers took over sections of the PBS.org Web site earlier this week, installing malicious JavaScript code on the site’s “Curious George” page that infects visitors with a slew of software exploits. For the uninitiated Curious Ge…
Big Time Identity Theft Hackers Indicted
… was alleged to have been the ringleader of the criminal hacking operation of a prolific network that spans over five years of serious criminal activity. Once a criminal, always a criminal. Gonzalez and two other unidentified hackers believed to be from Russia have been charged with hacking into Heartland Payment Systems, 7-11 and Hannaford Brothers Company, Dave and Busters and TJX Corporation, which involved up to 45 million credit card numbers…
Criminal Hackers: The Soldiers of the Web Mob
Today’s criminal hackers are very different than those who hacked for fun and fame a decade ago. Every week, I see stories about more criminals in faraway lands, making millions from various scams, emptying the bank accounts of small businesses or draining the financial reserves of entire towns. High-tech crimes can be committed by lone individuals, by small groups, or by organized web mobs. These web mobs structurally resemble the longtime oper…
7 Types of Hacker Motivations
There are good and bad hackers. Here is a window into what they do and why: White Hat Hackers: These are the good guys, computer security experts who specialize in penetration testing and other methodologies to ensure that a company’s information systems are secure. These IT security professionals rely on a constantly evolving arsenal of technology to battle hackers. Black Hat Hackers: These are the bad guys, who are typically referred to as jus…
Adobe a Target for Criminal Hackers
…8217;re in the spotlight.” Adobe, in response is doing everything a responsible software developer should do. Adobe is the same boat today that Microsoft found itself in years ago. Ground zero. Hack central. Criminal hackers love it. Adobe’s software or files are used on almost every PC and across operating all systems. Every browser requires a program to open PDFs and many websites either have links with PDFs or incorporate Flash…
Your Online Bank Account'; Criminal Hackers Hacking It
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker Expert Why hack your online bank? Because thats where the money is! White Hat Hackers (good guys) probably never anticipated whats happening. There are more viruses out there than ever. Black Hat Hackers (bad guys) are in full force. Back in the year 2000 some have said the white hats were about a year ahead of the black hats in technology. Meaning it would take about a year for the bad guys to crack the w…
Identity Theft Expert and Speaker on Personal Security: Young, Organized Criminal Hackers Can Hijack Unprotected Computers on a Grand Scale
…nforcement activities that led to the apprehension of the teenager and others this year are critical in the fight against computer crime. But he also noted that computer users themselves can do a great deal to thwart criminal hackers’ activities. “Robust law enforcement is a key approach to slowing criminal computer hackers,” said Siciliano. “These criminals need to know that somebody might be watching. But just as importa…
Meet Raoul Chiesa: UN Interregional Crime & Justice Research Inst.
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert In my quest to learn more about what makes a criminal hacker tick, I came across Mr Chiesa when he commented on a blog post I wrote “How I Wasted 4 Hours with a Criminal Hacker”. He warned me I was treading on dangerous ground due to the fact that when communicating with the blackhat, I used my real name and provided my web address. His concern was a revenge hack that would clear the hackers name amongst hi…
Criminal Hackers Create 3 Million Fraudulent Websites Annually
A recent study shows that organized criminals create approximately 8,000 malicious websites every day, or over 57,000 each week. These malicious websites model legitimate websites that we visit every day, such as bank websites, online shopping sites, and eBay. According to this study, the most frequently impersonated companies include Visa, Amazon.com, PayPal, HSBC, and the United States Internal Revenue Service. People are typically directed to…
Criminal Hackers Clean Out Bank Accounts Using Spear Phishing
…prevalent. According to a recent study, a 52% increase in phishing scams occurred in July alone. Computerworld reports that basic phishing emails successfully led to corporate bank accounts being completely drained. Criminal hackers waited until Pennsylvania schools administrators were on vacation, then used simple money transfers to liquidate over $440,000 between December 29 and January 2. Much of the phishing that occurs today is “spear phis…
Criminal Hackers Buying and Selling Hacked Accounts
media sites also allows the hacker to spread more spyware to those in the trusted circle and gives the attacker an opportunity reach out to the friends or followers of the victims to scam money in many other ways. These same hackers are enjoying access to a persons email account which may have a trove of data leading to even more usernames and passwords either contained in attached or cloud based documents. Having access to hacked email allows t…
Credit Card Hackers Target Small Business
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker Up until now, identity thieves have been hunting elephants. But that may soon change. According to this study, small to medium size businesses (SMB’s) are the criminal hackers next target. This should come as no surprise, as large enterprise networks have gradually become better at defending themselves. Over the past few years, criminal hackers have acted like hornets, attacking and swarming unassumi…
Criminal Hackers Steal Victims Home
zed the other properties had been sold and were no longer his. The thieves, were believed to be Nigerian, and had enough information on the man to allow the real estate transactions to go through. It is believed the criminal hackers got into his email account and obtained his personal identifying information along with his property documents which enabled the criminals to sell the houses. Reports state the transactions were made virtually via em…
How I Wasted 4 Hours with a Criminal Hacker
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert Lately I’ve been coming across “advertisements” on forums, posted by criminal hackers looking to sell our stolen information. They are “carders,” selling “dumps” and “fullz.” Well, I decided to make contact with one of them to see what the deal is. It turns out the one I connected with was less than forthcoming, but was very persistent and more than likely has and will continue to scam people. Here is the F…
Government Agencies Engaging in Criminal Hacking Techniques
Identity Theft Expert Robert Siciliano This article may be a little political. However bad guys are trying to win a cyberwar against us and it’s important to understand what’s being done to protect us. The US National Security Agency is probably the most sophisticated group of security hackers in the world. Many will argue this point. The fact is, without NSA, US STRATCOM, which directs the operation and defense of the military’s Glo…
Top 10 Jobs For Criminal Hackers
…ike any computer professionals who maintain all the hardware to keep the operation running as it should. 4. Criminal H ackers: t hese are the tech savvy penetration testers who aren’t legitimate penn testers but black hat hackers. They look for vulnerabilities in networks and plant code to exploit the users. 5. Social E ngineers: these are the scammers and liars that think up all the different scams and communicate with people via phishing e…
Are You a Hacker or Hackee?
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert Speaker In the past decade there have been hundreds of data breaches resulting in millions of compromised records. The motivation behind these hacks? Identity Theft. As a results dozens of new laws and government intervention to protect citizen data. Black, White or Grey, over the past decade the media has given the term “hacker” a negative connotation. Or is it hackers that gave the term a negative connota…
A Glorious Week of Identity Theft
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert If there was ever a week to get high, totally drunk, on information security and identity theft scammers and hackers, then this is it! Media outlets everywhere have been pumping out story after story of data breaches, identity theft, criminal hackers and indictments! Yeah team! For a criminal hacker groupie, this is Woodstock! Dark reading reports Eight defendants were arraigned in a Brooklyn court for alle…
Hackers Indicted for Jacking Comcast
Robert Siciliano identity theft expert A single hacked email address led to the defacement of Comcast’s homepage. When the hackers called Comcast’s technical contact to let him know that the Comcast homepage and all 200 Comcast domain names were vulnerable, he hung up on them. It has not been disclosed how the email was compromised, but there are many ways it could be. According to the indictment, the hackers got control of the domai…