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P2P Peer to Peer Scams
Identity Theft Expert and Speaker on Personal Security Says Recent News Underscores Implications of Research Linking P2P Networks to Data Breaches
(BOSTON, Mass. – Sept. 14, 2007 – IDTheftSecurity.com) Earlier this month news outlets reported the arrest of a Seattle, Wash. man on suspicion that he committed identity theft after obtaining the needed information via peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. According to Robert Siciliano, a widely televised and quoted personal security and identity theft expert, the development was not surprising in light of computer hackers’ ingenuity and the…
P2P on Your PC Equals Identity Theft
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Speaker Peer to peer file sharing is a great technology used to share data over peer networks. It’s also great software to get hacked. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is responding to reports that peer to peer file sharing allows Internet users to access other P2P users’ most important files, including bank records, tax files, health records, and passwords. This is the same P2P…
Government Tries to Thwart P2P Identity Theft
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert Computerworld reports the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed the Informed P2P User Act, a law that supposedly makes it safer to use peer-to-peer, or P2P, file-sharing software. Yawn. The bill now goes to the House for one more round of approval. If passed, the bill requires developers to explain to users how their files will be made available for sharing with others on a P2P network. The bill would…
Identity Theft Is Easy Over P2P
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert Peer to peer file sharing is a great technology used to share data over peer networks. It’s also great software to get hacked and have your identity stolen. Installing P2P software allows anyone, including criminal hackers, to access your data. This can result in data breaches, credit card fraud and identity theft. This is the easiest and, frankly, the most fun kind of hacking. I’ve seen numerous reports of…
P2P File Sharing On College Campuses
Peer-to-peer file sharing, or P2P, has become enormously popular on college campuses across the country because it allows students to easily exchange music and video files over the Internet. Tens of millions of people use P2P applications such as Limewire, eDonkey, and BearShare to fill their MP3 players and hard drives with all the music and movies they want, all for free. But even “free” has a cost. In addition to violating copyright laws, the…
When FTC Sends a Warning, Data Theft Has Jumped the Shark
When Fonzie jumped the shark on his HOG, that spelt the end of Happy Days. The FTC sending a warning to 100 companies and agencies that their employees are leaking client and sensitive data on the web via Peer to Peer file sharing (P2P) is the single most pathetic and embarrassing communication to come across the desk of an IT professional. It’s over, Johnny IT’S OVER! The FTC certainly has their hands full with the mess of information securit…
Congress Breached via P2P Filesharing…AGAIN!
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert Congress is still considering the Informed P2P User Act, a law that would supposedly make it safer to use peer-to-peer file sharing software, an effort that is similar to banning mosquitoes from sucking blood. It just isn’t happening. The only foolproof way to prevent accidental data leaks via file sharing programs is for IT administrators to lock down networks and prevent the installation of rogue so…
Identity Theft: P2P Networks Invite Online Thieves—Identity Theft Expert and Speaker on Personal Security
(BOSTON, Mass. – May 21, 2007 – IDTheftSecurity.com) Robert Siciliano, a personal security and identity theft expert, has demonstrated on television how file-sharing programs can render the contents of a computer’s hard viewable to online thieves. A new study has now shown that peer-to-peer network users may be inadvertently contributing to security breaches. “Parents should beware when their children share music and othe…
Tax Related Identity Theft Scams Up 300%
9. That’s nearly 300 percent. Thieves may steal victims’ refunds, trick them into disclosing Social Security or credit card numbers, or even pose as the IRS. Below is more information for those common and lesser-known tax scams to watch out for. Employment Identity Theft Scams: If you ever receive documentation in the mail indicating earned income that you are not aware of, it may mean that someone else has used your Social Security numbe…
Top 5 Scams to Watch Out For
#1 Nigerian Scams: According to a Dutch study, victims of advanced-fee scams, which are also known as 419 scams or Nigerian scams, lost more than $9 billion in 2009, almost 50% more than the previous year. (This PDF contains the statistics from the study.) While these types of scams are generally understood to be Nigerian in nature and origin, and are in fact named after the 419 Nigerian code that made them illegal, advanced-fee scams were launc…
Data Breaches Persist In Health Care
In September 2009, the Obama administration’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act went into effect, requiring hospitals and other health care organization to beef up client data protections. Despite this, a recent study found that health care data is still hemorrhaging from peer to peer networks. A peer-to-peer, commonly abbreviated to P2P, is any distributed network architecture composed of particip…
Digital Photos Held for Sextortion
This is a little over the top and if this story was happening to one person I may not even dare to discuss. But it seems to be happening to hundreds, maybe thousands and possibly tens of thousands. And the fact that kids today are posting anything and everything, it needs to be discussed. Right now hundreds of cyber threat victims are coming forward, arrests are being made and court dates are set because criminal hackers in the form of weird men…
P2P Security Concerns for Small Business
Peer to peer file sharing is a great technology used to share data over peer networks. It’s also great software to get hacked. This is the same P2P software that allows users to download pirated music, movies and software. In my own P2P security research, I have uncovered tax returns, student loan applications, credit reports and Social Security numbers. I’ve found family rosters which include usernames, passwords and Social Security numbers fo…
100 Million Facebook Profiles Published via P2P
Personal information on 100 million Facebook users has been scraped from the social media site and is being shared and download as a single file via what is called a Bittorrent. BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. Facebook takes on the issue is the data that was scraped wasn’t private at all. To a degree, I agree. The data is being shared through the site, it’s already public. He…
The Twelve Scams of Christmas," or Popular Online Attacks This Holiday Season Pt IV of IV
Robert Siciliano identity theft expert Cybercriminals Take Advantage of the Holiday Season, Aiming to Steal Consumers’ Money, Identities and Financial Information As cybercriminals begin to take advantage of the holiday season, McAfee, Inc. revealed the “Twelve Scams of Christmas” – the twelve most dangerous online scams that computer users should be cautious of this holiday season. According to Consumer Reports’ 2009 State of the Net Survey…
419 Scams Double, Over $9 Billion in Profits
Robert Siciliano Identity Theft Expert A recent study by Dutch investigation firm Ultrascan shows we are half as smart (or twice as dumb) as we were in 2008 as advanced fee scams doubled in losses to over $9 billion. 419 Advance Fee Fraud Statistics 2009 (PDF) It is believed that while the scams are known to be Nigerian in nature, coined after the 419 Nigerian code making them illegal, scams were launched from 69 other countries in 2009. T…
Summer Heat: On-line Dating Scams PT II
After my recent post Summer Heat: On-line Dating Scams a reader responded with the following: “I just had a similar experience that you described in your blog “Summer Heat: On-line Dating Scams”. I had joined Plenty of Fish and upgraded my profile to have more exposure. I received an email from “exquisitedaddy” a few weeks ago. We started sending emails back and forth. Then he asked me to IM on Yahoo Messenger. His IM email address w…