The AP reports: Ohio’s attorney general and two state lawmakers are pushing for harsher penalties against scammers who commit identity fraud and other theft crimes against active-duty service members and their spouses. The bill from Republican state Reps. Mike Dovilla and Terry Blair amends the current identity fraud and theft laws to increase penalties for…
Category: ID Theft
Target ignored its own warning system – Bloomberg (updated)
I’m watching Josh Tyrangiel of Bloomberg on CBS News this morning reporting that prior to its massive breach, Target ignored the warning alerts generated by its FireEye system. Target hasn’t responded to Bloomberg’s questions as to why the warning e-mails generated by the system were ignored. Interestingly, we heard something similar in the Neiman-Marcus breach where…
More University of Pittsburgh Medical Center employees report becoming tax refund fraud victims
Karen Zapf and Adam Brandolph report that as many as 322 UPMC employees have been affected by the breach, the system said last week. Read more on TribLive. Note that although the TribLive headline and story referred to this as a UPMC breach, I don’t think it’s actually been confirmed that UPMC had a breach,…
Seattle Archdiocese, FBI investigating data breach (update- may affect 90,000)
John Langeler reports: Most people would enjoy getting a $7,000 check in the mail. In the case of one West Seattle man, all the check indicated was his identity had been stolen. “The check had my Social Security Number on it as well as another woman’s name,” he said, asking us not to release his name,…
Security firm report says Target data hack was low tech
Jennifer Bjorhus reports: The U.S. Secret Service has called the criminals behind Target Corp.’s monster security breach well-organized, “highly technical” and “sophisticated.” But cybersecurity firm McAfee Inc. said in a report out Monday that the heist was anything but exotic, describing the attack as a Breach 101 operation. The thieves used easily modified off-the-shelf malware, common methods…
OH: Two sentenced for using stolen identities in tax refund fraud scheme
Tawanda Marimbire, 25, of Cincinnati was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 70 months in prison for his role in a scheme to use stolen identities to obtain at least $5 million in fraudulent tax refunds. Co-conspirator Kudzaishe Robert Bungu, 28, was sentenced to 27 months in prison. In early 2012, the Secret Service and…