37 'Money Mules' Arrested

21 Separate Cases Tied to Global Fraud Schemes

Linda McGlasson, Managing Editor

A federal crackdown on ACH and wire fraud has produced 37 arrests of a money mule operation -- part of what law enforcement is calling a sophisticated bank fraud scheme that used malware to siphon off millions of dollars from U.S. bank accounts.

The 37 defendants are charged in 21 separate cases for their roles in the fraud schemes that reached around the world. Arrests were made in London earlier this week in a similar case related to bank account fraud using the same type of malware.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara says that the cyber attacks that targeted businesses and other entities here in the U.S. began in Eastern Europe, and included the use of a malware known as the "Zeus Trojan," a type of keylogger malware that is designed to steal banking credentials.

To read the entire article, click here: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2967&rf=2010-09-30-eb

Small Business Jobs Act Means Big Opportunities Notes Expert from Leading Small Business Lender CapitalSource

CHEVY CHASE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Despite the government’s allocation of stimulus money through the Small Business Administration (SBA), America’s small businesses have found it difficult to get enough credit. But that is expected to change today when President Obama signs into law the Small Business Jobs Act.

“This is a very big deal for small businesses—and for small business lenders,” said George Harrop, the managing director of CapitalSource’s Small Business Lending group. “The biggest change is the increase in loan size. SBA 7(a) loans are permanently increased from $2 million to $5 million, and SBA 504 loans can now go up to a total loan amount of $12 million. This is particularly important for larger small businesses that were too big for SBA programs, but too small for Wall Street institutional lenders.”

To read the entire article. ckick here - http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100927006088/en/Small-Business-Jobs-Act-Means-Big-Opportunities

ID Theft Ring Busted

53 Arrested in Scheme Described as 'Frightening'

Tracy Kitten, Managing Editor


The U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey recently announced the arrests of 53 suspects charged with a sophisticated identity theft and fraud scheme -- one that allegedly targeted the identities of Asian immigrants.

Park Criminal Enterprise, based in Bergen County, N.J., and led by Sang-Hyun Park, is accused of buying Social Security numbers with a 568 prefix, which is typically issued to individuals from China who are employed in American territories, such as American Samoa, Guam and Saipan.

According to information released by the U.S. Attorney's Office, the scheme spans several states, where the suspects used Social Security numbers of Asian immigrants to get driver's licenses. They then used those numbers and licenses to open credit cards, bank accounts and take out loans. How the suspects were able to get their hands on the Social Security numbers is a bit unclear. Some may have been stolen, others may have been sold or given to brokers who then turned around and sold them to Sang-Hyun Park, the suspected ring leader behind the multimillion dollar scheme.

To read the entire article, click here - http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2939&rf=2010-09-25-eb

Senate OKs Small Biz Jobs Bill

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- After months of debate and significant pressure from the White House, the Senate on Thursday passed a $42 billion bill aimed at helping small businesses.

The House passed its own version of the bill about 3 months ago. The Senate's version of the Small Business Jobs Act will now have to go back to the House, where it's expected to pass, before President Obama can sign it into law.

The measure is expected to create 500,000 jobs, according to a Senate summary of the bill. Hiring by small businesses, considered a key driver of job growth, has been shrinking over the last two and a half years.

The bill, which passed the Senate vote 61 to 38, aims to spur hiring by making credit more available to small businesses. The number of loans has dropped by 17.8% since the second quarter of 2008 and the total value of those loans plunged by $60 billion to $650 billion, according to data from the FDIC.

To read the entire article, click here -
http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/16/smallbusiness/small_business_jobs_bill/index.htm

Stock Futures Dip Even As Jobless Claims Drop

By Stephen Bernard (AP)
NEW YORK — A September rally driven by economic reports regularly beating modest expectations appears to be on hold Thursday even after a weekly report on unemployment claims continued that recent trend. Stock futures fell.

The Labor Department said first-time claims for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in two months, but still remain at numbers that indicate economic growth is sluggish. Claims dropped to 450,000 last week. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters forecast they would rise to 460,000.

In recent weeks, reports that topped forecasts were enough to rally the market as investors' worries about the economy falling back into recession dissipated.

"We really don't have any economic trend in place other than stumbling economic growth," said Brett Gallagher, deputy chief investment officer at Artio Global Investors. "The reality is we're in for a lengthy slog of below-trend growth."

A separate report Thursday indicated prices at the wholesale level rose more than expected last month, but analysts say inflation isn't necessarily a short-term worry. The Producer Price Index, which measures prices on goods before they reach consumers, rose 0.4 percent in August because of rising energy costs. Economists were expecting a smaller increase.

To read the entire article, click here - http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jmT59dgLTTziX4p9X9MRBRpWZGdQD9I91GTO0

Vishing Scam Hits FDIC

Analysts Say Socially Engineered Schemes on the Rise


By Tracy Kitten, Managing Editor

Telephone-based phishing, or vishing scams are quickly ranking among the most popular socially-engineered schemes perpetrated by fraudsters. The latest target: The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which last week warned of a vishing scam that is duping consumers.


According to the FDIC's statement, the criminals behind the vishing calls allegedly told consumers they were delinquent in loan payments that had been applied for over the Internet or made through a payday lender. The loans may or may have not even existed, giving the vishers opportunity to collect personal information to confirm the authenticity of the loans. Recipients of the calls said the vishers requested everything from Social Security numbers to dates of birth.

To read the entire article, click here - http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2911&rf=2010-09-14-eb

Pre-paid legal fees upfront - Dallas Business Journal

By Kerri Panchuk

Dallas has an untapped market for lawyers in the pre-paid legal services segment, says Harland Stonecipher, CEO of Ada, Okla.-based Pre-Paid Legal Services.


“The only people who can afford lawyers today are the top 10 percent, and the bottom 10 percent who have access to public defenders,” he said.

This leaves the middle, which is most of the nation, he told the Dallas Business Journal during an interview Thursday morning. Stonecipher says 80 percent of all families — most of the nation — cannot afford legal services for even the most basic of needs. This means everything from real estate transactions, leases, divorces and foreclosures are throwing many families for a loop.

To read the entire article, click here - http://dallas.bizjournals.com/dallas/blog/2010/09/pre-paid_legal_fees_upfront.html

Yahoo E-mail Scam

By Melissa Allen


A friend or family member (John) sends you an e-mail stating that he has been robbed at gunpoint while on vacation in another country. John has no money, no cell phone, and needs $2,500 quickly to cover the hotel bill that he cannot pay now. The e-mail looks like it came from John’s Yahoo account. You have it in your address book, and you know it’s from John. What would you do? Calling him wouldn’t help because his phone has been stolen. Respond to the e-mail?

NO. Do not respond to the e-mail. Pick up the phone and call John. If you can’t reach him, then call a close friend or spouse. Call his place of employment to verify something, anything … really on vacation and didn’t tell you ahead of time?
 
To read the entire article, click here: http://qwebdesigns.wordpress.com/

9 Places to Get Involved and Build Small Business (SMB) Satellite Communities

By Lisa Barone

As small business owners, we’re often told to get out there and engage–that we should use social media to “even the playing field” (an expression I hate) and “meet” our customers and potential customers at the watering holes where they hang out. But…where should we go? What types of social site are out there for a small business owner who wants to create a presence and take advantage of everything the social media revolution has to offer? Where do you even begin?

Here are a few suggestions for the types of sites SMB owners should be seeking out.

To read the entire article, click here - http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/09/9-places-get-involved-build-smb-satellite-communities.html

Church Latest Victim of ACH Fraud

Diocese of Des Moines Loses $600,000 to Fraudsters


September 1, 2010 - Linda McGlasson, Managing Editor

Over a weekend in August, the Catholic Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa, fell victim to a $600,000 ACH fraud theft and becomes another in the growing list of businesses and entities that have suffered huge losses as a result of these crimes.


The church says it was victimized by criminals who illegally obtained its banking information in order to transfer funds to numerous "money mule" recipients across the United States on Aug. 13 and 16.

The Diocese is but the latest of many such incidents to have hit the nation's businesses and government entities over the past year. The Federal Bureau of Investigation estimates that 205 separate businesses have reported incidents of corporate account take-over since 2004 -- the bulk of them in the past year, with estimated fraud losses topping $40 million.

The increasing trend for criminals attacking mid-level targets is disturbing, but expected, says Chris Roberts, managing director at One World Labs, who has seen similar attacks recently in his investigations. "[The victims] don't have the same level of scrutiny that the major organizations go through, and they are less protected, less aware of the dangers."

To read the entire article, click here: http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2888&rf=2010-09-04-eb

Economy Sheds Fewer Jobs Than Expected

Private employers add 67,000 jobs in August; jobless rate ticks up

MSNBC.com News Services

BREAKING NEWS



WASHINGTON — U.S. employers showed a continued lack of confidence about hiring in August, suggesting the economy will struggle to grow through the rest of the year.

Private employers added a net total of only 67,000 jobs last month, according to the Labor Department’s August jobs report Friday. That number was below the amount of jobs needed to keep up with population growth, but was better than expected and down from July's upwardly revised total of 107,000.

Overall, the economy lost 54,000 jobs in August, partly because 114,000 temporary census positions came to an end. State and local governments shed 10,000 positions. The unemployment rate for August ticked up to 9.6 from 9.5 percent in July, rising for the first time in four months.

The unemployment rate cannot drop until employers significantly ramp up hiring. Employers are slow to add new workers because of uncertainty over potential costs tied to recently-passed health care and financial regulation reform as well as looming tax hikes.

The anemic economy is causing companies to conserve cash and hold back on hiring. While most economists expect the nation to avoid another recession, growth will likely be so weak for the rest of this year that the jobless rate could move back above 10 percent by early next year.

“Ultimately, businesses will hire if they feel confident there will be revenue growth in the future,” said Julie Coronado, an economist at BNP Paribas. “But we’re growing at a pretty slow pace.”

To view video concerning this topic, click here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38988367/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy

Adapting Digital Rights Management to Secure Sensitive Data

By Eric Chabrow

Could (or should) the bane of music aficionados who like to, but can't, share recordings - digital rights management - be adapted to produce another layer of protection of sensitive or classified government information?

In a phone conversation Tuesday, Jeff Nigriny, president of security provider CertiPath, raised the idea of employing the technology behind digital rights management to help secure sensitive documents. Digital rights management would be ideal in situations where a limited number of individuals need access to information.

Nigriny said the Joint Strike Fighter Program could benefit from digital rights management. JSF, as the program is known, is a joint effort by the U.S. military and nearly two dozen of our allies to define affordable, next-generation jet fighters. He says a problem our government faces is sharing sensitive and classified documents associated with JSF, even with such close friends as Britain:

"The U.S. government has not been able to get our heads around sharing the technical data with the U.K. It's not that we don't want to do it; the U.S. government has concerns that the people who would receive it in the U.K. might not have the same technical wherewithal to protect it the same way as Lockheed Martin would."
 
To read the entire article, click here - http://blogs.govinfosecurity.com/posts.php?postID=672&rf=2010-08-18-eg

ATM Access: Getting In Is Too Easy

By Tracy Kitten

Security is an interesting topic. We're all concerned about it, but we often overlook the most fundamental things.

Yesterday, I tapped a few bankers for comments about ATM security. In particular, I was fishing for some reaction to last week's ATM hack at the Black Hat Technical Security Conference. Two Windows CE-based ATMs were breached during a staged attack by security expert Barnaby Jack.

With ease, Jack opened the ATM's enclosure with a universal key he ordered over the Internet.

The ATMs - a Triton RL2000 and a Tranax 1700 - are most often deployed by retailers, community banks and credit unions. As Lilia Rojo, the director of operations for the $476 million El Monte, Calif.-based SCE Federal Credit Union, points out, credit unions are often looking for less-expensive ATM alternatives, relative to those produced by NCR and Diebold. "But we still want to know that the machines are secure," she says.

The Triton and Tranax ATMs are lower-volume machines, so they make sense for locations that aren't getting hit with, say, 2,000 cash withdrawals a month. But are they less secure? "It's certainly unsettling," Rojo tells me. "Not having the technical expertise, you rely on the manufacturer to help you with something like this - to stay one step ahead of these problems."

The problems Rojo refers to include the ease with which Jack showed how any hacker could access an ATM's operating system and ultimately take it over. In one case, Jack bypassed the ATM's remote management system. In another, he walked up and physically accessed the ATM's PC and infected it with malware saved to a thumb drive.

The former mode of attack is definitely disturbing - Jack bypassed the Tranax RMS. Triton, whose ATM was attacked by a thumb-drive-carried culprit, responded to the hacking of its authentication methodology with a patch.

How many institutions have downloaded and installed the patch? How many even know about the patch? That's definitely a concern. But more concerning is that the latter breach again exposes a security gap that has come up several times in recent weeks. With ease, Jack opened the ATM's enclosure with a universal key he ordered over the Internet.

To read the entire article, click here - http://blogs.bankinfosecurity.com/posts.php?postID=651&rf=2010-08-13-eb

ACH Fraud: 1 Year Later

What Results Have Come from Conflicts Between Banks, Businesses?

By Linda McGlasson, Managing Editor

In Rockwall, Texas, a suburb of Dallas, Hi-Line Supply, a business telephone equipment company, is trying to force Community Bank, Inc. into court to settle a liability claim for $50,000 over an alleged incident of corporate account takeover.

By itself, this incident is a footnote among legal disputes. But seen in the context of similar incidents that have swept the country for the past year, the Hi-Line/Community Bank case is the latest in a series of troubling conflicts between banking institutions and business customers.

It's been almost exactly one year since the growing scourge of ACH/wire fraud was exposed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in a warning about fraudsters using the online channel to prey upon small and medium-sized businesses.

Since then, the industry has seen many incidents and several high-profile cases, including:

Hillary Machinery vs. PlainsCapital Bank - the notorious case of a bank suing its own customer;

Experi-Metal Inc. vs. Comerica Bank - the concurrent case of a customer suing its bank over fraud losses;

PATCO vs. Ocean Bank - one of the more recent conflicts to emerge nationwide, impacting banks and businesses of all sizes.

To read the entire article, click here - http://www.bankinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2829&rf=2010-08-10-eb

New Fraud Spree Investigated

Retailers, Restaurants Struck by String of Crimes Targeting Cards

By Linda McGlasson, Managing Editor

The arrests of two men in Florida on multiple identity theft charges represent "just the tip of the iceberg" in payment card crimes against merchants and consumers across the U.S., according to law enforcement officials.

While these two suspects aren't believed to be the masterminds behind the string of fraud incidents that have hit retail chains such as Hancock Fabrics, the spike in the number of these crimes is undeniable, investigators and fraud analysts says.

A recent example: On June 3, Buffalo Wild Wings Restaurant near Oklahoma City was one of several regional restaurant chains to report being hit with credit and debit card fraud. Law enforcement has not yet said what the source of the credit card fraud was, but Elaine Dodd, head of the Oklahoma Bankers Association's fraud division, says it may have been a skimmer or point-of-sale compromise. "[Fraudsters] are using multiple routes to get card data because they know it can be done," Dodd says.

To read the entire article, click here - http://www.govinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2804&rf=2010-08-04-eg

A Tale of Three Breach Reports

July 30, 2010 - Linda McGlasson

This week a trio of reports came out on data breaches. Talk about information overload! I decided to take a look at these reports to compare commonalities and distinctions.

One of the best and most comprehensive of reports, the annual Verizon Business Data Breach Investigations Report, slams home some really scary statistics for financial services, hospitality and other industries prone to data breaches. Its two top headlines: Organized crime was responsible for 85 percent of all stolen data in 2009. And stolen credentials were the most common way to gain unauthorized access into organizations.

When boiled down to the basics, each of these reports says the same thing: Expect a data breach.

Next, the first annual Cost of Cyber Crime Study by the Ponemon Institute shows the enormous cost that data breaches have on victim organizations. This study doesn't look at types data breaches per se, but rather the costs. Web-borne attacks, malicious code and insiders are the most costly, making up more than 90 percent of all cybercrime costs per organization per year. An average web-based attack costs $143,209; malicious code, $124,083; and malicious insiders, $100,300. The report doesn't paint a rosy picture about the average length of time to resolve a data breach. An incident incurred by a malicious insider, for instance, takes an average of 42 days or more to resolve.

To read the entire article, click here - http://blogs.govinfosecurity.com/posts.php?postID=644&rf=2010-08-02-eg

Green Small Business

IceStone's energy-efficient plant

New York's IceStone has earned Cradle to Cradle Certification from design firm MBDC for its process of creating durable surfaces from recycled glass and concrete. Here's how they do it:

How the Public Sector Can Prevent Costly Data Losses

Source: CheckPoint

Businesses are faced with an assortment of security risks. Among the most prevalent risks are network attacks and infected computing systems (servers and end-user endpoints). The consequences of loss of use - that is, network failures and out-of commission computing systems - are just too great for any business to ignore. In practice, most businesses have taken appropriate steps to avoid loss of use incidents by utilizing a variety of purpose-built security technologies such as firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems/Intrusion Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS), and anti-virus/malware software.

To read the entire article, click here - http://www.govinfosecurity.com/whitepapers.php?wp_id=339

Small Businesses Emerge as Big Campaign Issue for Democrats and Republicans

By Lori Montgomery and Michael D. Shear



Washington Post Staff Writers
 
 
 As President Obama and his adversaries look for winning themes in the run-up to the November congressional election, both sides are noisily clamoring to prove their support for a critical constituency: America's small-business owners.

At the White House, the president's advisers are urging Democrats to portray Republicans as supporters of big corporations unfriendly to the interests of the small, family-owned enterprise. On Wednesday, as he visited a sub shop in Edison, N.J., Obama chided the GOP for blocking his proposal to expand tax breaks for small businesses and make it easier for them to borrow money.

"Helping small businesses, cutting taxes, making credit available. This is as American as apple pie," Obama said. "Small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They are central to our identity as a nation. They are going to lead this recovery."

To read the entire article, click here - http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/28/AR2010072806034.html

Most Breaches Caused by Crime Gangs

New Verizon Report Cites Organized Crime, Insiders Among Top Trends

By Linda McGlasson, Managing Editor


Organized crime was responsible for 85 percent of all stolen data in 2009. And stolen credentials were the most common way to gain unauthorized access into organizations.

These are among the headlines of the 2010 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, just released by Verizon Business.

Conducted for the first time in collaboration with the U.S. Secret Service, this year's report takes a broader look at the types and causes of data breaches. The USSS investigated 84 data breaches in 2009; Verizon investigated 57. Over the past six years, this annual report has reviewed over 900 data breaches, encompassing more than 900 million compromised records.

The latest report finds 2009's breaches of electronic records involved more insider threats, greater use of social engineering and the persistent, troubling trend of organized crime involvement. Of the 143 million records breached in 2009, 85 percent of them were attributed to financial service incidents. The one good piece of news: The overall number of breaches declined from those cited in 2008's report.

To read the entire article, click here - http://www.govinfosecurity.com/articles.php?art_id=2792&rf=2010-07-29-eg