So, our headline may be a bit misleading. It turns out that Acholonu was able to gain access to a massive amount of mail when he worked for a private contractor to the U.S. Postal Service. He was actually seen leaving work holding piles of credit card offers from the mail. He did not actually do any dumpster diving. But, he did get busted when investigators searched the trash bin outside of his apartment building and found the incriminating evidence.

It is ironic. We really do think…

Each year, we like to extend a heart-warming thanks to all of our readers and wish them a safe, healthy and happy holiday season.  This is the time of year for reflection, spending time with loved-ones and gearing up for a prosperous new year.  As we all know, unfortunately, criminals are still out there trying to gain access to our valuable and personal information.

So, we urge everyone to be safe over the holidays with your personal data.  While you may be enjoying some much-needed downtime from work, identity thieves are waiting for you to let your guard down.

Always be vigilant.  Always be smart and have a safe and happy holiday season!

“The main thing in any business is honesty,” Poxxie said, without any trace of irony.

The Traverse City, Michigan-based Ponemon Institute, which researches data security, estimates that thieves annually steal 8.4 million credit-card numbers in the U.S. alone. How do cyberbandits, who have turned hacking into a volume business, unload all those numbers. A lot like Amazon.com, it turns out.

Customers on CVV2s can search for card numbers by bank, card type, credit limit and zip code, loading them into a virtual shopping basket as they go. The site offers the ability to search by bank identification number. That means customers can choose cards by institutions known to have weak security, Poxxie said. CVV2s even has an automated feature that lets clients validate the numbers in real time, to make sure the bank hasn’t canceled the card.

Sites like Poxxie’s make up the cyberunderworld’s version of a pirate’s cove, offering their online booty at cut-rate prices. Hundreds of millions of dollars in stolen data are bought and sold in underground’s chat rooms and forums every year, a fencing operation that becomes more robust annually, according to RSA, the security division of EMC Corp. CrackHackForum.com, one of the sites, even mimics EBay Inc., rating buyers and sellers with starred reviews.

Read the full SF Chronicle article here.

Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from the ITAC blog. What do the Iowa Caucus, Gene Simmons and Malcolm X’s daughter all have in common? They are popping up in major stories about cyber security, data breaches and identity theft right now. Who would have thought that a simple blog that focuses on identity theft would have so much celebrity new to share? So, check out these stories and more in the following post. Happy Monday!

Iowa Caucus Polling System Threatened By Hackers
Republican Party officials in Iowa are taking new steps to secure their vote counting systems after an anonymous threat suggested computer hackers could attempt to disrupt next month’s presidential nominating caucuses. A video uploaded to YouTube features a computer-generated voice denouncing a corrupt political system and calls on supporters to “peacefully shut down” the Jan. 3 caucuses. The video claims to be from Anonymous, a loosely organized group of hackers who have successfully conducted past computer attacks. Investigators aren’t sure whether the video is authentic, but party officials have instructed precinct caucuses to use paper ballots as a backup system and taken other steps to protect the database and website that displays caucus results. Read the full Fox News piece here.

ID Theft Ring Targeted Charitable Donors
A crime ring used corrupt employees in banks, an Audi car dealership, and the nonprofit United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York to steal identities of well-heeled customers, clients, and donors and defraud them of more than $2 million, New York authorities said on Friday. The indictment of 55 defendants on a variety of grand larceny, identity theft and other charges marked the fourth major cybercrime prosecution announced in as many weeks, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said at a news conference, underscoring his contention that “the Internet is the crime scene of the 21st century.” Read the full Reuters story here.

Square Enix to Reopen Hacked Site, Says No Private Data Lost
Japanese game developer Square Enix said Monday that no private data was stolen when a server for a fan site was hacked last week, and it plans to reopen the site to users by the end of the year. The company shut down the “Square Enix Members” site for the U.S. and Japan last week immediately after finding unknown parties had accessed its server. The hacked machine stores registration details including e-mail addresses, names, addresses and phone numbers on 1.8 million users, but no credit card information. The European version of the site was not affected. Read the full PC World article here.

Anonymous Hacker Arrested for Attack on Gene Simmons’s Website
A member of the international hacker group Anonymous was arrested this morning after he conducted a sophisticated cyberattack on a website operated by KISS rocker and Family Jewels star Gene Simmons. Kevin George Poe, 24, was taken into custody by federal authorities at his home in Manchester, Conn. He is charged with two federal counts of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected computer. If convicted, Poe could face up to 15 years in federal prison. Read the full Daily Beast post here.

Malcolm X Youngest Daughter Behind Bars in Identity Theft Case
Malikah Shabazz, the youngest daughter of black civil rights leader Malcolm X, is in prison for failing to start paying back money stolen in an identity theft case, law enforcement sources confirmed on Thursday. Shabazz, 46, pleaded guilty in June to stealing the identity of a longtime family friend and using it to make $55,000 in credit card purchases. She was sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay restitution of $1,229.45 each month, beginning in September, to repay the full amount of illegal charges. Read the full Reuters story here.

NYC Officer Arrested in ID Fraud Scheme
Prosecutors say a 23-year-old New York City police officer has been arrested on grand larceny and forgery charges as part of massive identity theft takedown earlier this year. Officer Raymond Gumti who works at the Police Academy is accused of giving his mother’s credit card numbers and other identification to men accused of running a mass ID theft scheme. The arrest Thursday is related to an October takedown in which more than 100 people were arrested. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said at the time that five separate criminal enterprises operating out of Queens were dismantled. They were hit with hundreds of charges. Read the full WSJ article here.

Smartphones Blamed for Increasing Risk of Health Data Breaches
The number of physicians using smartphones has reached a near-saturation point. Meanwhile, the number of data breaches is going up. Coincidence? Leading experts think not. Recent reports by Manhattan Research have found more than 81% of physicians use a smartphone, up from 72% in 2010. Also on the rise have been data breaches, which, according to research released in December by Ponemon Institute, have risen 32% in the past year. Ponemon found that 96% of all health care organizations surveyed said they had experienced at least one data breach in the past two years. Read the full American Medical News article here.

Goldblatt is the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit, filed Thursday against HP in California, claiming that the IT giant should have warned customers about the flaws ahead of time.

In a nutshell, the flaw is a pretty bad one. HP LaserJet printers built before 2009 will accept remote firmware updates without properly checking where they come from. This means that — at least in theory — a hacker could cook up a malicious firmware update and upload it to a printer to make it stop working, spy on print jobs, or maybe even set the printer on fire by overworking the printer’s fuser — the part of the printer that dries ink on the paper.

HP says that it’s never heard of its printers being hacked by criminals and that its printers have “thermal breakers” that would prevent this kind of hacker inferno. But the company has acknowledged the underlying problem in a security alert.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages to be paid out to HP LaserJet customers (InkJet printers can’t do the remote firmware upgrade).

But how could HP have known about the defects, which were discovered by researchers at Columbia University and publicized late last month in an MSNBC story? That’s where things get a little fuzzy. Goldblatt’s attorneys cite a 2010 report commissioned by HP and written by analyst firm Quocirca, that describes some high-level security risks to printers, without spelling out specific attacks.

Read the full Wired story here.

Welcome to the Monday Morning News Kick Off post from the ITAC blog. As always, we have pulled together a vast array identity theft, date breach and cyber security news you need to start the work week. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is always no shortage of news to share. Why is this? Well, with 2011 being the “Year of the Data Breach,” cyber-related news has become virtually ubiquitous. Fortunately, we will serve as a filter for you, offering only the most compelling stories. We hope you enjoy and happy Monday!

Patient Data Breaches Surge as Hospitals Scrimp on Security
Data breaches at U.S. health-care providers are increasing as hospitals adopt electronic medical records and mobile technology without spending enough on security to ensure patient privacy, a research group said. The frequency of data breaches at health organizations jumped 32 percent in 2011 from a year earlier, costing the industry an estimated $6.5 billion, according to a study released today by the Ponemon Institute LLC, a Traverse City, Michigan-based information-security research group. Read the full Bloomberg/BusinessWeek story here.

Network Breaches Herald More Advanced Attacks in 2012
If 2011 was “the year of the hack,” as it was dubbed by Richard Clarke, former White House cyber-security czar, would 2012 be the year enterprises apply the lessons learned and stop the attacks? Apparently not, as security experts are predicting even more sophisticated attacks for 2012. Attacks in 2011 fell into four categories: cyber-crime, hacktivism, cyber-espionage and cyber-warfare, according to Clarke. Defense contractors, government agencies, and other public and private organizations reported network breaches where attackers stole intellectual property, financial data and other sensitive data. Hacktivist groups such as Anonymous and LulzSec demonstrated how much damage they can cause large organizations by employing fairly well-known techniques against the application layer. Read the full eWeek story here.

RIM Looks Into Hacking Claims
Research in Motion Ltd. said Wednesday it is investigating claims by online hackers that they have been able to access some of the proprietary systems, software and tools that run the company’s BlackBerry PlayBook tablet computer. Several hackers bragged in social-media posts early this week that they were successful in “jail breaking” the PlayBook. Jail breaking, also called rooting, is a common practice in which hackers gain access to the inner workings of phones, tablets and other devices. They then make this information widely available to others, who can use it to create unauthorized code or fashion homemade applications for the devices, much to the manufacturers’ chagrin. Read the full WSJ story here.

Florist Admits to Stealing Customers’ Identities
A Glendale florist and his wife pleaded no contest Thursday to multiple charges of identity theft after they were accused of stealing financial information from customers who shopped at their Glenoaks Boulevard shop, officials said. Vahik Ghookasian and his wife, Hilda, both 60, had originally pleaded not guilty to 14 felony counts of identity theft, but changed their plea in Burbank Superior Court. A no-contest plea is the equivalent of a guilty plea in criminal court, but cannot be used as evidence of liability in a civil trial. Read the full LA Times article here.

Identity Theft Victim Almost Sent to Jail Mistakenly
An Albuquerque man learned his identity was stolen when a lawyer called to notify him about a felony charge he didn’t commit. The Public Defenders Office called the man to talk about a criminal case against him and that he might want to accept a plea deal. However the guy was totally innocent. The Albuquerque Police Department arrested Alan Uffer, 52, for posing as the other man during an arrest in March. At the time, Uffer, under the other man’s name, was charged with commercial burglary, possession of burglary tools and aggravated assault. Read the full KOB-TV story here.

Massive Fines Planned in European Data Breach Crackdown
The European Commission could directly impose severe fines against companies that breach European data protection laws, sources confirm. The new European Data Protection Directive, set to be unveiled next month in January, will contain provisions for the Commission to impose fines of up to 5 percent of a company’s global turnover. In a similar case, under current European law, the Commission can fine companies that breach its antitrust laws up to 10 percent of its global turnover; regardless of where they are headquartered. Fines imposed by the Commission in line with the new directive could amass billions of dollars worth of revenue for large companies, such as Google, Microsoft, or Facebook, even in their native U.S. homeland. Read the full ZDNet post here.

First up.  It was reported that a group of hackers has posted more than 100 email addresses and login details, which it claimed to have extracted from the United Nations.  Yes, it was a typical tactical move by “hactivist” group Team Poison who wanted to flex its muscles and show that no global organization is immune to being exposed.  In a funny twist, Team Poison posted this on a Pastebin: “United Nations, why didn’t you expect us?”  So, yes, nobody is immune.

For the second feature, we have a story about how hackers can give a printer instructions to overheat and catch on fire.  Wow.  Talk about a great headline that would certainly generate those highly coveted Internet eyeballs that make or break an online news organization.

The problem is that hackers could never actually do this.  HP has stepped up and implemented a laudable (and may say credible) PR campaign to counter this story.  Can they catch fire?  No.  Are their printers vulnerable to breaches by hackers?  Yes.  Though HP has reported that no customer has reported unauthorized access of its printers.

So, why double up a hactivist story with a sensational piece design to strike fear in the heart of the average soccer mom?  We wanted to showcase how hacking and data breaches have penetrated pretty much every part of life – from the highest echelons of government down to the average U.S. homeowner.

But don’t worry…your printer won’t explode.

Smocer, who oversees BITS, the technology policy division of The Financial Services Roundtable, says that increased focus from Congressional leaders will have an impact on financial institutions, especially where breach notification is concerned.

“Legislatively, we can expect, probably, to see the emergence of a national law,” Smocer says. “We in the financial services industry already have that to some degree from Gramm-Leach-Bliley compliance, but we have the state level as well. It would be an advantage to have less diffusion and more standardization, so that consumers are being notified in the same way every time a breach occurs, regardless of the state they are in.”

And that is one area in which BITS expects to play an expanded role, by working to bring government and private interests together. Where breach notification is concerned, a federal law would benefit consumers and financial institutions. Complying with and understanding varying state requirements is something with which financial institutions struggle. Getting legislators to understand why notification variation also can be confusing to consumers is a priority for BITS, and an area BITS plans to pay particular attention to in the coming year.

Check out the full BankInfoSecurity.com article and podcast interview with Mr. Smocer here.

10 Tips to Avoid Cyber Monday Scams
It seems that the holiday shopping season comes earlier and earlier each year. Luckily, in the digital age, you can ditch the long lines of Black Friday and join the Cyber Monday crew by doing all your shopping online. However, even though shopping online is quick and convenient, there are risks involved. According to Forrester Research, online shopping this holiday season is expected to generate almost $59.5 billion. And 90% of consumers will shop online, according to PriceGrabber’s winter holiday shopping survey. This increased traffic turns the virtual marketplace into a winter wonderland for hackers, who are gearing up to swipe credit cards and personal information to commit fraud and identify theft. Check out more from Mashable here.

Senators Try to Block ID Theft of the Deceased
ID thieves would have a harder time trying to profit off the deaths of children and others under a House bill introduced last week to limit access to Social Security numbers available online. When Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) unveiled the “Keeping IDs Safe Act of 2011,” he criticized Social Security’s publicly released Death Master File, which has been used for at least a decade by thieves to access Social Security numbers, file bogus tax returns to the Internal Revenue Service and collect refunds. Johnson’s “KIDS Act” would effectively end public access to the death file, which now can be searched for a small fee or even for free on genealogy and other online sites. The files contain the Social Security numbers and other personal information that can easily be used by identity thieves. Read more from the Chicago Sun Times here.

AT&T Hackers Have Terrorist Connections, Say Philippines Police
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and police in the Philippines have jointly busted a ring of four alleged hackers in Manila with connections to a terrorist group in Saudi Arabia, the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippines police said last week. FBI agents, who have been investigating hacking of telecommunication companies in the U.S. and in the country since 1999, have uncovered a “paper trail” of various bank transactions allegedly linking the local hackers to the cell in Saudi Arabia, whose activities include financing terrorist activities, CIDG said in a statement. Check out the full PC World article here.

Scammers Steal IRS Refunds with Ease
Almost one year ago, in broad daylight, North Miami postal carrier Bruce Parton was killed for his key — a master key, authorities say, that unlocked personal financial information to residents of a North Miami-Dade condo building. The two men charged with the 60-year-old’s murder used his so-called Arrow Key to steal the information from dozens of residents’ mailboxes. Like magic, the pair converted the identities of others into an electronic stream of cash, by filing fabricated income tax returns in the victims’ names over the Internet, according to court documents.Their unwitting accomplice turned out to be the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS, without verifying their false income claims, loaded the refunds onto debit cards the men allegedly used in others’ names at Winn-Dixie supermarkets, 7-Eleven convenience stores and Chase Bank, records show. Read the full Miami Herald story here.

Whose Fault Is Identity Theft?
In many situations, we have little control over how our personal information is used, and who can gain access to that information. Our identifying information is stored in dozens of databases with government agencies, doctors’ offices, creditors, banks, lenders, schools and more. Providing personal information like a Social Security number is a precondition of obtaining any number of services. So, even though we feel like we shouldn’t be giving this information out, we often have no choice. As a result, we’re vulnerable to identity theft from numerous access points that we have no ability to protect. You can be extremely careful with your data in your everyday life, with a locked mailbox, shredder and secure home network, and still become a victim. Here are some of the people who may be at fault if your identity has been stolen, despite your best efforts. Read the full SFgate story here.

The High Price of Data Breaches
As consumers, we transmit valuable personal information to the companies with which we do business. In doing so, we trust that information will remain secure. Over the past year, however, we have learned of a number of instances in which vast quantities of personal data have been compromised. Last spring, for instance, breaches at Sony Corp. affected more than 100 million customers, putting their credit card numbers, email addresses and passwords at risk. Another recent breach exposed email addresses of customers of companies such as Best Buy, Citibank, Disney, JPMorgan Chase, the Home Shopping Network, Hilton, Marriott and the College Board. Read more of James Cole’s, the U.S. deputy attorney general, Op-Ed here.

‘Anonymous’ Hackers Target Pepper-Spraying UC Davis Police Officer
The Internet hacking group Anonymous has launched its latest attack on the UC Davis police officer accused of pepper-spraying student by posting a video online that lists his personal contact information. In a 10-minute video attributed to the group, a computer-altered voice publicizes the home address, home telephone and cellphone numbers and email address belonging to Lt. John Pike. A call to the listed cellphone number was answered by a voicemail announcement naming Pike as its owner, but said no space was available to leave a message. Check out the full LA Times story here.