Tag: scammers

Counting Cost of Fraud: Scammers Stole Over £421 Million Last Quarter

Uswitch analysis found that scammers stole £422 million last quarter, from 92,739 reported cases of fraud Brits lost £1,212 million to credit card fraud in 2022, down 5% from the previous year Over three quarters (76%) of fraud was credit card fraud Data suggests £26.1 million was lost through fraudulent ATM withdrawals The new credit card fraud report from Uswitch analyses police figures and the UK…
Chris Price Cybersecurity

Your entire identity's worth just £80

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Your name, your address, your mother’s maiden name, your passport number, the name of your first pet (“fluffles”? seriously?), your credit card numbers, your top five albums, your national insurance number. All that – what security experts call your ‘identity’ in the context of ‘identity theft’ – is worth just £80.

That’s the price that entire packages of data are going for on message boards and websites populated by fraudsters and scammers. A single piece of data can go for as little as £5. The data’s so cheap because there’s so much of it available – nearly half of all UK computer users aren’t using a firewall or security software.

All you’ve gotta do is make sure that your virus scanner stays up-to-date, and that you’ve got the security features in your operating system fully enabled and up-to-date. In fact go run Windows Update now. I’ll wait. Back? Good. Odds-are that you’re now pretty much safe.

Get Safe Online (via BBC)

Related posts: Microsoft on viruses and malware: It’s not our fault, guv. | FEATURE: Modern Day Malware & Organised Crime

Duncan Geere Internet

Microsoft, Yahoo!, Western Union and the African Development Bank team up to fight internet scammers

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The little-known Littlewood’s Law states that individuals can expect a miracle to happen to them at the rate of about one per month. The reasoning is that a miracle is a one-in-a-million event, and a human experiences things at the rate of about one a second for about 8 hours a day. There are approximately a million seconds in 35 days’ worth of 8 hours, so the average person can expect a miracle about once a month.

That probably explains why I win the African National Lottery, or am contacted by a Nigerian prince on at least a daily basis, promising me riches beyond my wildest dreams. Microsoft, Yahoo!, Western Union and the African Development Bank are here to rain on my parade, however, because they’ve formed a coalition dedicated to stopping people winning fabulous prizes, because they think they’re scams…

Duncan Geere Internet