E-Commerce Blog

Recovering from an identity theft case can be more than a burden on your time and pocketbook. It can also be emotionally draining. Victims frequently feel the same anger and vulnerability suffered by victims of violent crime. Yet diligently working through the steps recommended by identity theft prevention experts should, eventually, restore your good name, wipe black marks off your credit report, and recoup virtually all, if not absolutely all, of the money fraudulently spent under your name. So, how do you prevent this from happening again?

Excerpted from:
Identity Fraud, Part 3: Taking the Target Off Your Back

Did a computer intrusion at a Best Western hotel in Germany open the door for a hacker to steal the records of 8 million customers and pull off “the greatest cyber-heist in world history,” as a Scottish newspaper put it? Or was the incident a significantly more minor affair, affecting only 10 customers at the one facility, as claimed by Best Western International? The Phoenix-based hotel chain and the Sunday Herald newspaper of Scotland are duking it out over the paper’s story on the data breach. Best Western calls the article “grossly unsubstantiated” and “largely erroneous.”

Original post:
Scope of Best Western Customer Data Breach Open to Debate

The Department of Justice has charged 11 people with the theft of millions of account numbers from a long list of U.S. big box retailers including TJ Maxx, OfficeMax, Barnes & Noble, Boston Market, BJ’s Wholesale Club, Forever 21, DSW, Dave & Buster’s and Sports Authority. Albert “Segvec” Gonzalez was the ringleader, according to the indictments, which were unsealed in San Diego and Boston. He is being held in New York on charges of computer fraud, wire fraud, access-device fraud, aggravated identity theft and conspiracy.

The rest is here:
Feds Throw Book at 11 Customer Data Theft Suspects

Credit card companies know what you’ve bought. Phone companies know whom you’ve called. Electronic toll services know where you’ve gone. Internet search companies know what you’ve sought. It might be reassuring, then, that companies have largely pledged to safeguard these repositories of data about you. However, a recent federal court ruling ordering the disclosure of YouTube viewership records underscores the reality that even the most benevolent company can only do so much to guard your digital life: All their protections can vanish with one stroke of a judge’s pen.

More here:
Ruling Opens Customer Data Floodgates

Earlier this year, a careless employee at an investment firm learned a painful lesson: Sharing files through peer-to-peer Web sites like LimeWire can easily expose internal data in a corporate network. In this case, the employee worked for Washington-based Wagner Resource Group, which counts several politically connected people, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, among its clients. The employee’s actions revealed the personal data of Breyer and the firm’s 2,000 or so other clients — and the breach was not discovered for some six months.

Read more from the original source:
P2P File-Sharing Sinks Ships