Rental Research Services, Inc. , a consumer reporting agency, and its principal, Lee Mikkelson, settled FTC charges that they failed to properly screen prospective customers and sold at least 318 credit reports to identity thieves. Under the settlement, the company and its principal must ensure that they provide credit reports only to legitimate businesses for…
Category: ID Theft
AU: Bank confirms credit card fraud from Bottle Domains hack
On February 10, the Australian Domain Name Administrator (AuDA) reported that it had been notified by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) of a security incident involving domain registrar Bottle Domains. Another report at the time can be found here. Now eCommerce Report is reporting that one bank has confirmed fraud on some of the credit-cards…
Bits ‘n Pieces
In the justice system: John Shiefer, the Los Angeles computer security consultant who turned thousands of computers into zombies, was sentenced to four years in prison. More. Four Arizona men accused of spending more than $1 million using stolen credit cards are being held in a Maricopa County jail; they allegedly obtained the card numbers…
T-Mobile case update: indicted men were not employees
As an update to the story here: A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office informs me that the 5 men who were indicted today were not employees of T-Mobile. They allegedly accessed and acquired the customer data via an authorization code that they obtained from the owner of a T-Mobile store. The owner of that…
T-mobile customer data used in fraud; 5 indicted
A number of Michigan news sources such as the Detroit News are reporting that an indictment has been unsealed against five Detroit men who used T-Mobile USA records to find customers with good credit. They then allegedly opened accounts with HSBC to obtain credit that they used to purchase computers and other electronics from Hewlett…
Bits ‘n Pieces
In the criminal justice system: As a follow-up to a case previously reported, former Navy petty officer, Cora Dixon, pleaded guilty and accepted a 15-year prison sentence for helping run an identity theft ring. She was accused of using her access to direct deposits at the Fort Worth Reserve Joint Base to take banking and…