Cybercrime

Nigeria’s notorious fraud industry has expanded overseas - with Nigerian conmen entering Malaysia on student visas to perpetrate fraud using the country’s fast connections and advanced banking system, and raking in millions of dollars.

New ‘slimline’ ATM skimmers are proving far harder to spot - with some of the hi-tech models remaining in place for up to five days before banks are alerted, and equipped with hi-tech extras such as cameras to spy on users' PIN codes.

A high-profile ‘connected’ lighting system had a critical vulnerability which allowed attackers to take control of the entire system, switching off light bulbs at will, and which could be executed by criminals within 100 feet of a home.

Top police cybercrime experts from 22 European countries are to participate in a 10-day intensive training course in Spain starting this week - becoming, in the words of the head of the European Cybercrime Centre, ‘cyber cops’.

Banking malware built to misdirect a Brazilian form of bank payment method targeted $3.75 billion of transactions over the past two years - and the scale of the attack may have eclipsed any single previous instance of electronic theft.

A point-of-sale and security system vendor used by restaurants including Taco Bell and Dairy Queen has warned its customers that customer credit card details may have leaked in a breach earlier this year.

A Ukrainian criminal who claimed to be behind a plot to send packages of heroin purchased from an online ‘dark market’ to veteran security blogger Brian Krebs has been arrested in Italy on suspicion of selling stolen credit cards.

Extorted for Bitcoin? Some U.S. pizza restaurant owners have been receiving letters threatening them with bad reviews, fake pizza orders, food contamination and, in extreme cases, even bombs.

Personal information on 1.3 million people including bank details, medical records and home addresses may have leaked after a security incident where attackers gained entry to a server owned by Montana’s Public Health and Human Services department.