cybercrime

The following article has been compiled by Bev Robb. Bev owns Teksquisite, a Southern Oregon IT Consulting business that specializes in Internet security technologies and social media. She is currently consulting with Virtual World Computing (VWC) on their flagship product Cocoon, a Firefox plug-in that protects Internet users from viruses, malware and online tracking.  She blogs at the Tekblog and the Cocoon blog and currently administers five Facebook fanpages.

The newest version of Zeus, a do-it-yourself crimeware kit responsible for millions of dollars in losses by consumers and businesses, comes with anti-piracy provisions similar to those used by Microsoft's Windows, a researcher said today. And that's a good thing.

Like Windows, Zeus 1.3 ties itself to a specific computer using a key code based in part on the machine's hardware configuration, said Kevin Stevens, a security researcher with Atlanta-based SecureWorks, and a co-author of a report on Zeus published last week. "It's just like a Windows license," said Stevens as he explained how the key code is generated.

US losses to online crime almost doubled during 2009, reveals a report.

Losses totalled $560m (£371m) in 2009, up from $265m (£176m) in 2008, showed the annual report by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3). Complaints about online fraud grew 22% during 2009 and the IC3 received more than 336,655 reports of high-tech crime incidents from victims.