FEATURE EDITORIAL

Fraudsters Go-a-Vishing

Interesting report released earlier this month from Javelin Strategy & Research. While focused on consumers, it offers insight into current identity fraud practices applicable to all. According to the researchers, this year's report reinforces a three-year trend that criminals mostly obtain the majority of information from stolen personal belongings, and through telephone calls, rather than online. Access through mail and telephone transactions rose from 3 percent of theft in 2006 to 40 percent in 2007. The dominant method used by fraudsters in this channel was vishing, a variant of phishing, in which criminals use telecommunications, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other technologies to obtain information, rather than online. The report notes that as consumers have shifted more financial transactions to secure online arenas, fraudsters have become more creative in utilizing traditional telephones, both land lines and wireless, to access information. For the first time, a key new finding identifies five states to be well above the national average for fraud when compared on a percentage basis to other states across the country. Respondents in California, Illinois, Idaho, West Virginia and Delaware reported the highest incidence of ID fraud. In a list of steps to avoid identity theft the Javelin researchers recommend not mailing payments, but rather make them online. CheckFree, a provider of financial electronic commerce services and products, sponsored the study but Javelin discloses that up front.

Secure Computing offered the following comment about the report: "Javelin Strategy & Research noted that identity theft has declined, primarily due to greater awareness and more security precautions being taken. But the problem is nowhere near going away." Secure Computing cited the report statistic as a case in point, which was Americans lost US$45.3 billion last year due to identity theft. This is down from US$51 billion in losses in 2006. In addition the company notes that Javelin's report also states that one in 28 adult Americans have had their personal data stolen for the purpose of fraud. "Part of the key to preventing identity fraud is simply greater awareness of how fraudsters operate, but this in itself isn't enough. While most people know better than to fall for an email from someone claiming to be a deposed military dictator that wants to send you millions of dollars, cyber thieves are constantly refining their tactics. Just recently, the head of Milwaukee's office of consumer protection, whose mission is to protect consumers against just such actions--was herself a victim of identity theft." Learn more about the topic of identity fraud, with past articles from Messaging News.

February Sees Jump in IM Malware

Akonix Systems, Inc. a provider of unified policy and risk management products for real-time communications, today announced its IM Security Center researchers tracked 20 new malicious code attacks over instant messaging (IM) networks in February — a 43 percent increase over the previous month. New IM worms identified in February include Barten, Defusxyd, Dung and MSNemy. MSNemy and Imaut is the most common with two variants each, followed by Rbot with one. In addition, there were 15 attacks this month on P2P networks, such as Kazaa and eDonkey. "For the past six years, we have tracked malicious IM activity, and we see that hackers continue to attack this increasingly popular collaboration tool," notes Don Montgomery, VP of marketing at Akonix. "Furthermore, as companies begin to implement unified communications and increase the number of real-time media in use, malware writers will only benefit by having more platforms to penetrate. Businesses need to recognize this and take preemptive action before they lose valuable data due to a security breach or data leakage."

MESSAGING NEWS CASE STUDY BRIEF:

Real World Solutions from People in the Trenches featuring Message Systems and Wired for Change

Wired for Change provides Web-based eCRM and online advocacy tools to progressive organizations and political campaigns. Their hosted Salsa platform is a powerful communication application that enables mass email blasting, online advocacy campaigns, online event management and donation processing. Soon after its founding, Wired for Change was sending up to four million email messages per day—well beyond the capacity of its original email delivery system. Campaigns with lists containing one to two million addresses would literally take hours to send out, and without a way to handle bounced messages, campaign mailings with a high number of bad addresses were increasingly landing Wired for Change and its customers on ISP blacklists.

Wired for Change moved quickly to find an email delivery system that could keep pace with its sending volume and ensure high deliverability. "With Message Systems Delivery Manager, Wired for Change's email deliverability rate has increased tenfold. We are now able to deliver 1.4 million messages an hour compared to 100,000 an hour with the previous solution," said Andy Tomasello, director of Network Operations for Democracy In Action, Wired for Change's sister company. "With mailing list sizes seeming to grow exponentially every few months, this not only makes our customers happy, but reduces our workload and increases our peace of mind." Wired for Change goes on to say customers are also benefiting from Message System's automated bounce processing and reporting. In the past messages would be marked by the recipient as Junk Mail, but Wired for Change could not see it and would continue sending to that same address. Eventually, ISPs would blacklist the organization's mail, preventing all of its customers' mail from going through. Now, with visibility into why a soft bounce occurred, Wired for Change can remove the addresses of people who have unsubscribed using their Junk Mail button.

We welcome your ideas and your news for Messaging Newswire’s News & Trends in Email Security. Let us know what you think by sending your comments to editorial@messagingnews.com. Written or compiled by Stephanie Jordan. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

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