I often think about what it would be like to leave the house with one card; the simplicity that one card would seem to offer. It could hold all my personal data in secure format, I could travel with it, use it to prove I was licensed to drive, even pay my bills with it.

With the advent of the iPhone and similar smartphone devices, we have seen the incorporation of a music player, a media storage device, a GPS, an e-mail client, a phone and other features included in one single device. What has been proposed for some time and what is now closer than ever to being implemented is a smartphone that would also offer payment capabilities. That is, it would serve as a payment card possibly containing a chip or RFID that would allow you to waive your phone past a reader at your local store.

With all the convenience this offers, the bundling of services all containing personal pieces of data presents new opportunities for security enhancements.

There's a delicate balance of spending ease vs. security to ensuring fraud prevention in these new devices. They have encouraged debate on privacy concerns in regards to monitoring spending patterns.

Check out the article below for more info.

Paying with the wave of a cellphone
thegGlobeandMail.com - Thursday, June 25, 2009 05:09AM EDT

It was late March when a crowd of Bay Street types gathered at a luncheon in Toronto to hear a rare public speech by Visa Canada chief executive Tim Wilson.

From behind the podium, Mr. Wilson pulled his wallet out of his pocket and waved it in the air.

"We hope that one day this ... will become this," he said, putting the wallet down and flashing his BlackBerry in his other hand.

That day is closer than most Canadians realize.[...]
Continue to the rest of the Globe and Mail article.

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FraudBlog.net will be taking some much needed rest and relaxation over the next two weeks. Stay tuned for more fraud updates in late May.

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See you soon!

--J

Fraudtsers wait for this.

Like ambulance chasers, fraudsters aiming to profit from charitable donations or from pushing viruses onto other computers wait for epidemics like the recent swine flu outbreak.

How do they do it?

Aside from feeding off of the panic that these situations bring about, cyberopportunists react ahead of the curve to the change in people's web surfing habits. Fraudsters include catchy phrases in their virus-laden e-mails associating the epidemic with someone or something people are familiar with (false subject headlines such as "Selma Hayek has the swine flu!") and improve their own websites using SEO (search engine optimization) techniques to draw people searching for info on the epidemic to their malicious webpages.

In much the same way that fraudsters jump quickly to profit from this usually short-lived panic, internet security companies are quick on their trail, taking websites offline and creating updates for anti-virus software.

Swine flu cases cause outbreak of fraud on internet
SCMagazineUS.com - Monday, April 27, 2009

Cyberopportunists are trying to cash in on the swine flu outbreak by launching spam attacks and registering URLs that reference the hot news story.

Security firm McAfee said Monday that about two percent of all spam now contains the words "swine" and "flu," while competitor F-Secure reported that at least 146 domains containing references to the outbreak were registered over the weekend.

"We absolutely saw this one coming," Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee Avert Labs, told SCMagazineUS.com on Monday.

Neither the emails nor the websites appear to be foisting malware, but a majority are linking to pharmaceutical websites, Marcus said. Some of the messages are arriving with subject headings such as "Salama Hayek caught swine flu!" to entice users to read them.
[...]
Continue to the rest of the SC Magazine article.

In our first guest article, a fellow blogger, Courtney Phillips addresses the current fraud trends in the US market.

In a report released in late February by Unisys Corporation, figures showed that a whopping 75% of Americans believe that the current financial crisis has increased the likelihood of experiencing fraud and identity theft related crimes.

According to Tim Kelleher, vice president and general manager of Managed Security Services for Unisys, the majority of the American public has their guard up, and rightly so. “Consumers, businesses and governments alike all need to take greater precautions. Our research may provide insight for enterprises to consider when communicating about security concerns and delivering services to their customers.”

Unisys conducts bi-annual studies of consumer opinions in four areas of security concern. In the latest February poll more than a thousand Americans responded and noted the increased concern. “The economy’s pervasive effects go well beyond job losses and home foreclosures.” Said Kelleher, “Our data shows most people see an immediate, personal risk from greater fraud. Yet criminals see this risk as an opportunity, and new social engineering fraud schemes can tap into peoples’ fears.”

The most feared breach of security to the average American: Their personal credit or debit card. The report noted that 68 percent of those polled reported that they are ‘extremely or very concerned’ about the safety of their personal accounts. The amount of people who responded that they had ‘no concern’ was at the lowest level since the survey began 25 years ago.

But individuals aren’t the only ones who should be concerned as the economy continues to sag. Business should be on the lookout for criminals watching for weaknesses in the system. Keller reminded that it was up to businesses to provide an infrastructure that would both be secure and provide customers with the reassurance they needed.

“Banks and businesses need to understand that customers are more wary than ever about using services that may compromise their personal data,” he continued, “If economic concerns increase these fears, companies need new strategies to strengthen customer confidence through accountability and transparency, which also plays to part of the Obama administration’s call to action for government and business.”

Is your data safe?
Experts are increasingly recommending an even closer watch on credit reports and bank statements to stop identity fraud before it can ruin your financial state of affairs. A good bet would be to close any unused accounts and safeguard information that might otherwise go into the trash. At the very least shredding or destroying documents before they are disposed of can provide for more protection.

This post was contributed by Courtney Phillips, who writes about ranking of community colleges. Courtney has also contributed her thoughts on Stimulus Fraud in the US. She welcomes your feedback at CourtneyPhillips80 at gmail.com

FraudBlog.net is now posting blog entries contributed by fellow bloggers!!!


Whether experienced writers, corporate bloggers or fraud investigators, these people have something to share with the fraud prevention community. Stay tuned as new views are shared and new voices heard.

--J