Student gang’s weekend blitz on mobile dealers
By Shane Wilson Dealer fraud, costing an estimated $3.35 Billion a year, is one of the top five frauds perpetuated against the mobile industry. The ease with which fraudsters are able to generate considerable sums of money was recently illustrated by a gang of six London students who conned Belfast and Ballymena businesses into providing […]
Mobile hacking – the new weapon for spies and fraudsters
By Dilip Mistry Germany’s interior minister Hans-Peter Friedrich’s claims that the hacking of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone was giving rise to “conspiracy theories” underestimated the reality. US National Security Agency’s silent response to the allegations that American spies had eavesdropped on the German Chancellor’s mobile phone took another surprising twist this week. German weekly Focus […]
Email fraudsters moving to text and voice
By Shane Wilson Fraudsters are moving from email to embrace text messages (SMiShing) and voice calling (Vishing) to gather personal information or gain control of a user’s device. This shift in focus is due to advances in email spam filters and consumer awareness of email scams which makes committing email fraud more difficult. People perceive […]
Roaming – the most costly type of fraud
by Dilip Mistry According to the Communications Fraud Control Association’s (CFCA) most recent fraud loss survey one of the most common types of fraud reported by operators, accounting for $6.11 Billion (USD) losses, is roaming fraud. Whether inbound, where calls are received on a different network than the home network, or outbound which is the […]
Who’s calling you?
by Andy Gent Cold calling is a nuisance, to the point that many people simply do not answer calls from numbers that they do not recognise or that do not display. With the growth in automated calls, this issue just gets more frustrating. But there is also a sinister element to some cold calls. Fraudsters […]
Let your fingers do the talking as iPhone 5 fingerprint security is hacked
By Shane Wilson Following on from last week’s attempt by Apple to popularise finger print based security on mobile phones as “a convenient and highly secure way to access your phone,” comes the news that hackers have already broken the Apple system. You can see our blog from last week on the pros and cons […]
Biometrics bolstered in the mobile space
The launch of Apple’s iPhone 5s (thoroughly covered in almost every news outlet), sees what has been widely reported as the first use of fingerprint recognition technology in mobile. Actually the Motorola Atrix, launched in 2011, also used fingerprint technology to unlock the device. If course facial recognition software has been available in Android phones […]
New banking trojan targets mobile phones
by Andy Gent The latest bank account-raiding Trojan, Hesperbot, includes element to persuade users to install a mobile malware component of the software onto Symbian, Blackberry and popular Android smartphones. The software, which has been reported infecting computers in the UK and throughout Europe is distributed through convincing package tracking documents from postal companies or […]
New use of mobile to create banking fraud
By Dilip Mistry Online and mobile banking has brought a new level of convenience to consumers world-wide and the growth of mobile payments, particularly in the developing world, has created new opportunities for commerce to be transacted. However, this also generates new opportunities for fraudsters. The Times of India reported this week on a new […]
Part 3 Social media – how to avoid the fraudsters
Here are twelve simple rules to help anyone avoid social media fraud… Keep your Internet security software up to date to employ the privacy settings to limit who can view your profile Be cautious of downloading or using applications from unknown providers Beware of any links that ask you to sign on again Have a […]