The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) today sharply revised previous estimates on the number of citizens that were hit by tax refund fraud since 2014 thanks to a security weakness in the IRS’s own Web site. According to the IRS, at least 724,000 citizens were victims of refund fraud after crooks figured out how to abuse a (now defunct) IRS Web site feature called “Get Transcript” to steal victim’s prior tax da
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) today said it tracked a nearly 50 percent increase in identity theft complaints in 2015, and that by far the biggest contributor to that spike was tax refund fraud. The announcement coincided with the debut of a beefed up FTC Web site aimed at making it easier for consumers to report and recover from all forms of ID theft.
A story in a national news source earlier this month about freezing your child’s credit file to preempt ID thieves prompted many readers to erroneously conclude that all states allow this as of 2016. The truth is that some states let parents create a file for their child and then freeze it, while many states have no laws on the matter. Here’s a short primer on the current situation, with the availability of credit freezes (a.k.a “security freeze”) for minors by state and by credit bureau.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission this past week announced it reached settlements with software giant Oracle and identity protection firm LifeLock over separate charges of allegedly deceiving users and customers. LifeLock agreed to pay $100 million for violating a 2010 promise to cease deceptive advertising practices. Oracle’s legal troubles with the FTC stem from its failure to fully remove older, less secure versions of Java when consumers installed the latest Java software.
The Federal Trade Commission announced this week it is suing a consumer data broker that sold payday loan application data to scammers who used the information to pull money out consumer bank accounts. The scam brings to mind an underground identity theft service I wrote about in 2012 that was gathering its data from a network of payday loan sites.
Jan. 31 marked the start of the 2014 tax filing season, and if you haven’t yet started working on your returns, here’s another reason to get motivated: Tax fraudsters and identity thieves may very well beat you to it. According… Read More »
An identity theft service that sold Social Security and drivers license numbers — as well as bank account and credit card data on millions of Americans — purchased much of its data from Experian, one of the three major credit bureaus, according to a lengthy investigation by KrebsOnSecurity.
A week ago Friday, the U.S. Justice Department announced that MoneyGram International had agreed to pay a $100 million fine and admit to criminally aiding and abetting wire fraud and failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program. Loyal readers of this blog no doubt recognize the crucial role that MoneyGram and its competitors play in the siphoning of millions of dollars annually from hacked small- to mid-sized business, but incredibly this settlement appears to be unrelated to these cyber heists.
Scott Henry scoured the Web for a good deal on buying TurboTax. His search ended at Blvdsoftware.com, which advertised a great price and an instant download. But when it came time to install the software, Henry began to have misgivings about the purchase, and reached out KrebsOnSecurity for a gut-check on whether trusting the software with his tax information was a wise move.
Five days after Henry purchased the product, blvdsoftware.com vanished from the Internet.
