Archive for the ‘Online Fraud Trends’ Category

Perhaps a little birdie told Twitter to buy a malware company or maybe they took a page from the ThreatMetrix™ playbook. On January 10, ThreatMetrix acquired Australia-based TrustDefender, which provides secure browsing technology to protect against malware and man-in-the-browser (MitB) attacks. Or maybe it was done in advance of Twitter’s new advertising launch? Say, didn’t one of the company’s founders say Twitter would never use advertising as a way to monetize the company? Nah, must’ve been another company with the same name. 

In any case, in preparation for its new ad service, Twitter announced the acquisition of spam and malware protection service, Dasient. Rachael Horwitz, a Twitter spokesperson told Mashable.com that Dasient would be integrated into Twitter’s “revenue engineering team because they have a deep understanding of advertising-platform security issues.” Considering the cybercrime-ridden environment into which Twitter is starting its new ad service, it would seem prudent that first and foremost the company would address security.

According to an Aite Group report (“Know Your Enemy: Successful Online Fraud Mitigation Strategies”), 25 million new, unique strains of malware were released in 2011. That number is projected to grow to 87 million strains by the end of 2015.

A Gartner Group report (“The Five Layers of Fraud Prevention and Using Them to Beat Malware”) containing a survey of 76 U.S. banks found malware was the number one cyberthreat.

Of the advertising platform, Mashable.com reports, “The self-serve platform lets advertisers purchase ads without going through a sales representative. Anyone with a credit card and the desire to utilize ‘Promoted Products’ to boost their brand recognition can get on-board with this service. However, the service is not yet available to the public.”

eMarketer, which does market research and statistics, projected Twitter’s ad-generated revenue could earn the company $399.5 million by 2013. With that kind of money on the table, Twitter would appear to be a magnet for cyberthieves.

Mashable.com observes that Twitter is already the object of malware threats going back to 2010, when “the FTC ruled that Twitter would be subject to a bi-annual security audit after 55 celebrity accounts were hacked, including the accounts of Barack Obama, Britney Spears and Facebook. Spammers have also taken advantage of Twitter’s trending topics in order to target a large amount of people.”

Till now, Twitter’s reputation was on the line with the possibility of a search engine blacklisting any site “overrun” by malware.  However, adding big advertising dollars to the mix raises the stakes considerably and makes the Dasient acquisition a very smart move.

Is buying and integrating a malware company into your company a bit “over the top?”  No worries.  You can still get the best protection on the planet from malware and the full range of cyberthreats from ThreatMetrix.

Without relying on passwords, user names and cookies to protect its clients, the ThreatMetrix™ Cybercrime Defender Platform uses anonymous data from the computer, its connection to the Internet and contextual data from a transaction to sniff out cybercriminals. The ThreatMetrix Cybercrime Defender Platform is the first industry solution that integrates sophisticated malware detection and advanced device identification technologies in a single, unified platform. This unified approach to cybersecurity is a game changer. By integrating malware detection and device identification with shared, centralized intelligence, ThreatMetrix delivers the unique ability to protect the integrity of entire online transactions.

To meet the ever mounting threat posed by malware, ThreatMetrix™, the fastest-growing provider of integrated cybercrime prevention solutions, announced today that it has acquired the Australian-based company TrustDefender™, a recognized leader of secure browsing technology to stop man-in-the-browser (MitB) attacks and provide malware protection.

The ThreatMetrix™ Cybercrime Defender Platform is the first industry solution that integrates sophisticated malware detection and advanced device identification technologies in a single, unified platform.

This unified approach to cybersecurity is a game changer. By integrating malware detection and device identification with shared, centralized intelligence, ThreatMetrix delivers the unique ability to protect the integrity of entire online transactions.

The combined companies will operate under the ThreatMetrix name with global operations in the United States, Australia and Europe. The corporate headquarters will be located in San Jose, California.

“The natural synergies between device identification and secure browsing are very obvious,” said Reed Taussig, president and CEO, ThreatMetrix. “Successful transaction profiling requires sophisticated malware detection and intelligent device identification to determine if the device is compromised or if the transaction is at risk of being fraudulent. While our customers have recognized this for a long time, the only available solution – until now – was to implement multiple products across different vendors. By integrating advanced device identification and secure browsing into a single, competitively priced, easy-to-install and easy-to-use product, ThreatMetrix is delivering the most complete online fraud management solution available in the market today.”

The Growing Global Malware Threat 

According to an Aite Group report (“Know Your Enemy: Successful Online Fraud Mitigation Strategies”), 25 million new, unique strains of malware were released in 2011. That number is projected to grow to 87 million strains by the end of 2015.

A Gartner Group report (“The Five Layers of Fraud Prevention and Using Them to Beat Malware”) containing a survey of 76 U.S. banks found malware was the number one cyberthreat.  Gartner’s recommendation:  banks and financial institutions implement a layered approach to fraud prevention to prevent and contain against cybercriminal attacks.

According to Andreas Baumhof, co-founder and CEO of TrustDefender, who now joins ThreatMetrix as CTO, the acquisition addresses the growing global malware threat.

“In 2011 we saw a huge increase in sophisticated MitB Trojan activities supporting fraudulent transactions with stolen identities,” said Baumhof. “Malware protection and fraud prevention are closely related, yet no truly integrated solutions were available in the market. The merger allows ThreatMetrix to address fraud prevention and malware protection as a single problem and deliver real benefits to customers at a lower cost.”

ThreatMetrix Cybercrime Defender Platform

With the acquisition, the ThreatMetrix™ Cybercrime Defender Platform now consists of the following product solutions and associated benefits:

• TrustDefender™ ID — TrustDefender ID is a cloud-based, real-time device identification solution that protects companies against cybercriminals and helps validate valuable returning customers. TrustDefender ID provides businesses with a crucial first perimeter of defense to protect online transactions, including account creation, login authentication and payment authorization.
• TrustDefender™ Cloud – TrustDefender Cloud is a cloud-based, real-time solution that helps companies protect customer data and defend against fraud, malware, MitB and Trojan attacks, and data breaches. It mitigates the risk of hidden malware compromising authenticated sessions to steal data, identities or money.
  
• TrustDefender™ Client — TrustDefender Client is a client-based, real-time solution that mitigates the risk of hidden malware compromising authenticated sessions to steal data, identities or money. A small client component installed on end-user computers identifies and isolates malware, verifies legitimate websites, protects the online session with the business, and communicates with the business to identify potential fraud.

“Combining endpoint centric fraud prevention products is cost effective,” said Avivah Litan, vice president and distinguished analyst, Gartner. “Device identification and malware detection in particular, are two of the most prevalent and required endpoint protection products in the market today. Device identification provides a strong foundation against fraud while malware protection closes a loophole in fraud prevention caused by man-in-the-browser attacks. Combining these solutions will streamline the fraud prevention, management and administrative processes for organizations combating today’s cyberthreats.”

Additional Resources

• ThreatMetrix™ Cybercrime Defender Platform
• TrustDefender™ Client Datasheet
  
• TrustDefender™ Cloud Datasheet
  
• TrustDefender ™ID Datasheet 

Just released in a second edition, Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld by Jeffrey Carr, is a wide-ranging overview of virtually every type of online illicit activity from cyber spying and cyber stealing to malicious malware attacks and identity theft.

Carr, a cyber intelligence expert is a columnist for Symantec’s Security Focus. A writer who specializes in investigating cyber attacks against governments and infrastructures, he’s been quoted in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Business Week, Parameters, and Wired. Carr was also principal Investigator for Project Grey Goose, an Open Source intelligence investigation into the Russian cyber attacks on Georgia in August, 2008.

With a foreword by former Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff and guest essays, including an essay by former senior advisor to the Director of National Intelligence and Cyber Coordination Executive,  Melissa Hathaway, Inside Cyber Warfare is encyclopedic in scope as it takes up :

·      The Conficker Worm: The Cyber Equivalent of an Extinction Event?

·      Africa: The Future Home of the World’s Largest Botnet?

·      The StopGeorgia.ru Project Forum

·      The Russian Information War

·      The Gaza Cyber War between Israeli and Arabic Hackers during Operation Cast Lead

·      Control the Voice of the Opposition by Controlling the Content in Cyberspace: Nigeria

·      Are Non-state Hackers a Protected Asset?

·     The Legal Status of Cyber Warfare

·      The Antarctic Treaty System and Space Law

·      The Law of Armed Conflict

·      Is This an Act of Cyber Warfare?

·      Responding to International Cyber Attacks as Acts of War

·      Analyzing Cyber Attacks under Jus ad Bellum – whether entering into a war would be a just war

·      The Korean DDoS Attacks (July 2009)

·      One Year After the RU-GE War (the War between Russia and Georgia)  Social Networking Sites Fall to DDoS Attack

·      Ingushetia Conflict, August 2009

·      Pakistani Hackers and Facebook

·      TwitterGate: A Real-World Example of a Social Engineering Attack with Dire Consequences

·      False Identities

·      Components of a Bulletproof Network

·      The Bulletproof Network of StopGeorgia.ru

·      SORM-2

·      The Kremlin and the Russian Internet

·      A Three-Tier Model of Command and Control

·      Organized Crime in Cyberspace

·      Russian Organized Crime and the Kremlin

·      Using Open Source Internet Data

·      Team Cymru and Its Darknet Report

·      Using WHOIS

·      Weaponizing Malware

·      The Role of Cyber in Military Doctrine

·      China Military Doctrine

·      A Cyber Early Warning Model

·      Advice for Policymakers from the Field

·      When It Comes to Cyber Warfare: Shoot the Hostage

·      The United States Should Use Active Defenses to Defend Its Critical Information Systems

·      Scenarios and Options to Responding to Cyber Attacks

·      Whole-of-Nation Cyber Security

·      Conducting Operations in the Cyber-Space-Time Continuum

·      Anarchist Clusters: Anonymous, LulzSec, and the Anti-Sec Movement

·      Social Networks: The Geopolitical Strategy of Russian Investment in Social Media

·      Globalization: How Huawei Bypassed US Monitoring by Partnering with Symantec

·      The Russian Federation: Information Warfare Framework

·      Russia: The Information Security State

·      Russian Ministry of Defense

·      Internal Security Services: Federal Security Service (FSB), Ministry of Interior (MVD), and Federal Security Organization (FSO)

·      Russian Federation Ministry of Communications and Mass Communications (Minsvyaz)

·      Cyber Warfare Capabilities for: Australia – Brazil – Canada – Czech Republic – Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – Estonia – European Union – France – Germany – India – Iran – Israel – Italy – Kenya – Myanmar – NATO – Netherlands – Nigeria – Pakistan – People’s Republic of China – Poland – Republic of Korea – Russian Federation – Singapore – South Africa – Sweden – Taiwan (Republic of China) – Turkey – United Kingdom

·      US Department of Defense Cyber Command and Organizational Structure

·      Active Defense for Cyber: A Legal Framework for Covert Countermeasures

·      Covert Action

·      Cyber Active Defenses as Covert Action Under International Law

The book covers much more in 316 pages that are topical while, at the same time, providing in-depth analyses of the often dark underbelly of cyberspace.

For maximum protection from cyberspace’s dark underbelly, there’s one company that stands out — ThreatMetrix. ThreatMetrix offers superior solutions that can’t be compromised by break-ins. ThreatMetrix solutions protect against bad scripts and fraudulent account logins, payments and transactions.  With customized rules for each, ThreatMetrix solutions are designed to interdict attacks of fraud and other criminal behavior in real-time, while passively and transparently profiling users — without collecting extraneous personal identity information such as Social Security Numbers, birth dates and mother’s maiden names.

The world is a big place with close to seven billion people. And, according to professional researcher Moya K. Mason, something like 50-million new firms are started each year. So when you think about ThreatMetrix making Red Herring’s top 100 leading private companies in all of North America, Europe, and Asia, it’s quite an honor – especially when put in the context of other companies that have made the Top 100 in past years: Google, Skype, Baidu, Salesforce.com, YouTube and eBay. (The full list of winners in 2011 can be found here: http://www.herring100.com/RHG/2011/top100.html)

Red Herring’s editorial staff evaluated the companies on both quantitative and qualitative criteria, such as financial performance, technology innovation, management quality, strategy, and market penetration. This assessment of potential was complemented by a review of the track record and standing of start-ups relative to their sector peers.

Alex Vieux, Chairman of Red Herring, observed, “Choosing the best [companies from] the previous two years was by no means a small feat. After rigorous contemplation and discussion, we narrowed down our list from 1,100 potential companies to 100 winners.  It was an extremely difficult process [and the] competition for the Top 100 was fierce.  [The] Top 100 Global are truly the best of the best.”

“We’re extremely proud to be recognized by Red Herring as among the best technology companies globally,” said Reed Taussig, president and CEO, ThreatMetrix. “Winning the Red Herring Global award further validates ThreatMetrix’s value proposition in the marketplace as a leading provider of online fraud prevention and cybersecurity solutions.”

Many companies have already come to the conclusion that ThreatMetrix is the “right decision” when it comes to protecting their online assets. Offering transaction security from hidden proxies, scripted attacks and cookie and browser manipulation, the ThreatMetrix™ Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform lets companies authenticate payments, new accounts and returning customers in real time. And it doesn’t matter what device is being used from smartphones to PCs to tablets. Combined with aggregated fraud intelligence in the cloud, ThreatMetrix device identification offers companies maximum protection without the need to collect Social Security numbers, email addresses or bank account information.

Nobody knows for sure.  Maybe Russian hackers attacked the Illinois water pumping station for the same reason Leigh Mallory, the British mountaineer, said he was going to climb Everest – “Because it’s there.”

A report from the Illinois Statewide Terrorism and Intelligence Center titled “Public Water District Cyber Intrusion” suggests that the burn out of a water pump could have been a deliberate, full scale security breach into the utility’s computer system from a computer in Russia.

Water district workers noted “glitches” in the system for nearly two months. Finally one employee noticed problems with the control systems. According to security expert, Joe Weiss, “An information technology services and computer repair company checked the system logs and determined the computer had been hacked into from a computer located in Russia.”

While not causing a disruption to the water supply, this would be the first cyberattack on an American public utility. According to an article in the New York Daily News, security experts concluded that the attack highlights the risk that hackers can infiltrate the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems that control critical utilities from railroads and dams to chemical plants and nuclear reactors.

Lani Kass, a cyber policy expert, says, “Many (SCADA systems) are old and vulnerable [because] there are no financial incentives for the utility owners to replace and secure these systems and the costs would be high.”

But, when it comes to calling the breaking of the water pump an attack by a foreign power, Sean McGurk, former director of the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, says everybody should just hold their water. This, of course, was a paraphrase. What CNN reported McGurk said was, “This is just one of many events that occur almost on a weekly basis. While it may be nice to speculate that it was caused by a nation-state or actor, it may be the unintended consequence of maintenance.”

Department of Home Security spokesperson Peter Boogaard noted, “At this time there is no credible corroborated data that indicates a risk to critical infrastructure entities or a threat to public safety.”

So was Illinois under cyberattack by Russian hackers? Was it simply a glitch in the system?  Or was it…something else?

No. Not UFOs. But as it happens, the pump failure coincides with expansion of a Pentagon project that contracts cyber experts to hack into computer systems to pinpoint security weaknesses in U.S. defense programs.  Could this be as case of, as Pogo, the cartoon character used to say, “We have met the enemy and they is us?”

If you’re responsible for the security of your company’s online assets, you have to assume the worst. And, assuming the worst, you need the best possible protection:  ThreatMetrix.

Because the ThreatMetrix™ Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform does not rely on passwords, user names and other data to identify returning visitors, spies are immediately denied one benefit of an attack – gathering personal information about the users themselves. By drawing upon hundreds of anonymous characteristics from every transaction and analyzing them in real-time, ThreatMetrix solutions provide security from hidden proxies, scripted attacks and browser manipulation.

Legitimate app or a real killer designed to upload malware and snag users’ personal information and money? Perhaps the only thing growing as fast as the mobile market is malware to steal from that market.

Gerry Smith in a Huffington Post post reported that “malware jumped 22 percent in the first half of this year compared with the same period last year. Google’s Android operating system was the most popular target for mobile malware developers during the second quarter….

“Hackers are setting their sights on Android…by disguising malware as legitimate apps. For example, a fake update of the popular game Angry Birds sends sensitive information about the user to the hacker who gains access to the user’s phone and downloads more malicious software….”

According to the Smith’s post, “after several malicious apps were published to the Android Market, Google said it was taking measures to help prevent additional malicious applications from being distributed and working to fix the underlying security issues. It said the malware did not affect Android versions 2.2.2 or higher.”

But, Smith said that a Symantec white paper claims “Google allows attackers to anonymously create and distribute malware in the Android market and relies on Android users to make important security decisions they are often not capable of making….”  Super news with more Americans opting for Google Android operating systems over Apple’s iOS.

A McAfee report found “an increase in fake anti-virus software for Mac operating systems, suggesting that such malware could start appearing on other Apple products, including iPhones and iPads.”

So if both Apple iOS and Google Android OS are becoming at risk of being compromised, where does an online business turn for protection? ThreatMetrix.

Offering transaction security from hidden proxies, scripted attacks and cookie and browser manipulation, the ThreatMetrix™ Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform lets companies authenticate payments, new accounts and returning customers in real-time. And it doesn’t matter what device is being used from smartphones to PCs to tablets. Combined with aggregated fraud intelligence in the cloud, ThreatMetrix device identification offers companies maximum protection without the need to collect social security numbers, email addresses or bank account information.

Either by turning away real customers or letting cybercrooks get their hands on goods without paying for them, online retailers could find themselves “on the hook” for a big chunk of money on Cyber Monday.

Officially nicknamed (as opposed to unofficially nicknamed) “Cyber Monday” in 2005, Cyber Monday is the Monday after Black Friday, which is the Friday after Thanksgiving, which is the last Thursday in November. Or, put another way, Cyber Monday is the first Monday after Thanksgiving.

Anyway, in 2010, comScore, which claims to be ” the global leader in measuring the digital world” reported that last year consumers spent $1.028 billion online on Cyber Monday, the highest spending day of 2010. And while other countries don’t celebrate America’s Thanksgiving, they do, indeed, celebrate Cyber Monday everywhere from Canada to New Zealand.

Security expert, Jorge Steinfeld, in a Forbes Magazine piece notes that hackers will be gearing up for Cyber Monday this year by taking advantage of social media. “[Hackers] are busy creating fake profiles on social networking and e-commerce sites. These profiles and Web sites are meant to mimic well-known corporate brands, and coax users into clicking on their content. As a result, malicious content can now lay hidden within Twitter posts and Facebook links…” Social media is one more way cybercriminals can “gather personal and professional information, creating specific profiles on individuals and tricking them into divulging sensitive or personal information [from] credit card numbers to information about their employer’s organization.”

Social media and the continuing dramatic 50% growth in mobile transactions year-over-year since 2005 could make 2011 Cyber Monday a record-breaker. One aspect of Cyber Monday that a lot of people in the technology and retail sectors will be paying particular attention to is who will be the big winner of “Mobile Monday”?  Android or iOS?

Following is a breakdown of transactions by mobile device as compiled from the ThreatMetrix Global Network of more than 15-milllion daily transactions. From November 2010 to November 2011, ThreatMetrix found that mobile as a percentage of total transaction volume decreased for the iPhone by 35%, the BlackBerry by 51%, and the Palm by 96%. Conversely, Android mobile volume showed a massive uptick in 2011, with a 661% increase in overall transactions coming from a mobile device. Windows devices showed a more moderate increase, at 19% year-over-year.

“Based on our findings, the iPhone is still the dominant device where mobile transactions are taking place, but we’ve seen Android gain a lot of traction in 2011,” said Alisdair Faulkner, chief products officer, ThreatMetrix. “It’s now become a two-horse race with mobile. The question does not center around whether or not consumers will make mobile purchases this season, but which device will come out ahead on what’s now deemed ‘Mobile Monday’.”

According to ThreatMetrix Fraud Facts, on average, 3% of transactions worldwide now come from a mobile device. That’s up from 2% in 2010.

“Mobile transactions have higher conversion rates because they are intention-driven,” added Faulkner. “This makes it even more critical for retailers to ensure they are not only delivering an excellent mobile experience, but have a solid mobile fraud prevention strategy in place.”

Faulkner noted that while many retailers will likely experience a record number of purchases coming from mobile this year, many still maintain insufficient or incorrect fraud tools in this channel. The consequence will be lost revenue based on both fraudulent transactions taking place, as well as valid customers being turned away because of incorrect fraud classifications. Faulkner predicts as many as one in four mobile transactions may be incorrectly classified this year.

Top Fraud Threats During Peak Season

With an increased volume of online transactions during the holidays, retailers have less time for manual screening and review of transactions – whether they are coming from a laptop, desktop computer, tablet or mobile device. It makes automated fraud screening vital during this high-volume period.

So what are the top five fraud threats during this time of year?

1. Mobile device spoofing – Merchants are put at increased risk with mobile transactions simply because it’s more user-friendly for fraudsters. Today, most fraud coming from the mobile channel actually originates elsewhere; the device acts like a mobile device.

2. Use of botnets and malware – This is a prominent concern on both traditional desktop and laptop computers, as well as mobile devices, as malware can steal passwords and payment account information. On top of that, many of today’s consumers fail to install appropriate fraud prevention software on their mobile devices, according to Faulkner. Analyzing anomalous behavior and checking third-party IP reputation can help detect malware.

3. Cookie-wiping – Merchants could previously track repeat visitors through cookies, yet many of today’s consumers and fraudsters remove cookies by using add-ons and private browsing modes. This makes it difficult to recognize suspicious repeat visitors and identify returning good customers; cookieless device identification is more important than ever.

4. IP address cloaking – It has also become easier for criminals to spoof or mask IP addresses. This makes it harder for merchants to know the “true” IP of the visitor and distinguish the good transactions from the bad. Identifying proxied visitors is crucial; this can be done by inspecting HTTP headers, maintaining a blacklist of known proxy sites, dynamically detecting proxied requests and piercing the proxy with a callback request.

5. Use of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) – VPNs use separate software on the originating device to place it on a different network, showing traffic is originating from a different address than its true network. To identify fraudsters who are using VPNs, it’s important to monitor time zone and language settings, as well as global anomalies.

For more information about these Cyber Monday threats, and tactics for defeating cybercriminals during this peak transaction period, check out ThreatMetrix videos, “The Mobile Fraud Threat,” “Malware and Mobile: How Big of a Threat Is It?” and “Top Three Tactics to Consider for Mobile Fraud Detection.”

Misha Glenny’s book, DarkMarket, relates the brief history (2005 – 2008) of DarkMarket.ws, an Internet cybercrime forum (in English) that was kind of a cross between a chat room and Amazon.com.

If you haven’t heard about the site, it probably says something about your honesty. You see DarkMarket.ws was “by-invitation-only.”  If you weren’t a cybercrook who knew a cybercrook, you were not about to get access to the URL.  Very exclusive.

You know the expression “honor among thieves?”  Well, you could call getting an invitation to join, “a high honor among thieves.” The Website provided criminal entrepreneurs — stolen identity and credit-card data buyers and sellers — a venue to meet and exchange information and ideas with their peers and learn from experts about the latest technologies and scams in a professional, friendly atmosphere. Created in London by Renukanth Subramaniam, who went by the user name JiLsi, the site had 2,500 users at its peak and was a place where an online thief could buy “skimming machines” (devices installed in ATMs to record users’ credit-card details), find reviews of hardware advertised on the site, and generally catch up on the latest and greatest in crime.

You’ve probably heard this other old saying one time or another.  “You can’t bulls_ _t a bulls_ _ _ ter.”  While you may have heard it, the FBI evidently didn’t because they ended up scamming the scammers.

FBI agent J. Keith Mularski infiltrated the DarkMarket site using the name of an infamous Polish spammer, Master Splyntr. In fact, he not only infiltrated it, he became the site’s administrator!

Misha Glenny’s DarkMarket is the story of how DarkMarket.ws was taken down. Says Evgeny Morozov in his review in the Wall Street Journal, “Mr. Glenny, a gifted investigative reporter, has sought out investigators and cyber criminals alike (he visited many convicted offenders in prison and got them to talk about their trade). He dissects DarkMarket’s transient but maddeningly convoluted history in a highly meticulous, almost forensic manner….Before the story is over, Turkish military intelligence agents, the Tamil Tigers, members of the Saudi royal family and the brother of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer all make appearances.”

Pointing out that it’s impossible to end cybercrime without understanding the psychology of cybercriminals, Morozov says Glenny’s book offers valuable insight. “Even though many cyber criminals have day jobs, they spend inordinate amounts of time online, mostly in a futile attempt to impress their peers and join the ranks of the digital übermenschen. Many choose cybercrime for the same reasons that disaffected youngsters choose more pedestrian forms of crime; tales of desperation, rejection and poverty loom large in this book. Faced with an unpalatable choice between a life of violent crime or seemingly victimless cybercrime, 13-year-olds in Ukraine choose the latter.”

However, no matter how they found their way into cybercrime, once in it, these criminals often act like mainstream business. “Obsessed with profit-maximization, they vie to annihilate competition, establish absolute monopoly and ratchet up the prices.”

While European and American police agencies seemed to work well together, the same couldn’t be said of American internal police agencies.  Offers Morozov, “Mr. Glenny recounts a grotesque story of how the FBI and the Secret Service had been investigating each other’s undercover agents, in both cases believing them to be actual criminals. Only the intervention of their British colleagues, who were privy to the secrets of both groups, prevented a major crisis.”

So, lacking guns, explosions and car chases, what kind of read is DarkMarket? Wall Street Journal reviewer calls it, “an eminently readable, witty narrative that sustains suspense until the very last pages.”

As a result of the FBI sting, there were more than sixty arrests worldwide with the man who started it getting sentenced to nearly five years in prison. So, what’s the best way to fight cybercrime if you’re not an FBI agent with unlimited time and funds?

ThreatMetrix™.

The ThreatMetrix™ Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform offers a global perspective of risk from a worldwide network of shared intelligence across tens of millions of transactions across all of ThreatMetrix’s customers. The information is always up-to-date and always available. Incorporating ThreatMetrix SmartID™ cookieless device identification, the Platform lets companies authenticate user logins in real-time — without relying on personally identifiable information (PII). So, even in a worst case scenario where a breach has occurred, cybercriminals never have access to personal information such as birth dates, maiden names and Social Security numbers.

Integrated into the latest release of the ThreatMetrix™ Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform is a new multi-layered data encryption architecture feature that takes data encryption to a whole new level.  Addressing strict security requirements, the new feature provides multi-layered encryption of customer-siloed data and global customer data with minimum impact on customer response times.

Should any one customer account be compromised, data loss is limited to that one customer.  Even if the data center hosting ThreatMetrix services were compromised, the encrypted data would remain confidential. Customer data shared with ThreatMetrix™ for fraud protection purposes remains secure. And, there’s no worry about a degradation in performance.

“It’s our goal to raise the bar for the level of security and privacy of online transactions,” said Alisdair Faulkner, chief products officer, ThreatMetrix. “The question is not if a consumer’s identity will be compromised, but it’s a matter of when it will be compromised. Credit card companies can update their credit cards if they’ve been compromised, but consumers can’t simply recycle their identity. ThreatMetrix is staying one step ahead so fraudulent activity is minimized and our clients can do a better job of protecting their customers.”

Faulkner added, “ThreatMetrix, in broadening its strategy as a leader in digital cyber identification, views the new data encryption feature as a critical next-step toward protecting privacy and enhancing the security of confidential consumer information during online transactions. Activities associated with hacker group LulzSec and many recent high-profile data breaches like Epsilon and PlayStation — which resulted in millions of compromised accounts — underlines the need for new encryption technology that better protects both online brands as well as consumers.”

The new release offers a host of new benefits including new fraud detection rules, device identification improvements, administrative enhancements, queue management improvements, and changes to the ThreatMetrix Portal around access and data privacy.

Faulkner observes, “PII is no longer an effective authentication tool by itself, as it can’t authenticate the person behind the transaction.  Context is key, which means looking past the device and also considering other factors associated with the device, like phone number and email. We’re looking for anomalies in customer data, in conjunction with the underlining device reputation behavior. It’s whether or not all transactions and customer and device information make sense in the context of that transaction. We then apply this intelligence across a comprehensive global network to stop fraud in real-time and better protect consumers.”

Today, ThreatMetrix serves social networks, financial services, e-commerce companies et al. by authenticating payments, new accounts, and customers in real-time —without hassling those customers for personal information like Social Security Numbers, mothers’ maiden names, etc. It’s estimated that ThreatMetrix helps screen up to one-billion online transactions each month and is successfully eliminating the threat of an estimated 300,000 fraudulent attempts every day!  That’s why ThreatMetrix has become the fastest growing provider of cloud-based fraud prevention solutions that don’t require personally identifiable information.

Anonymous took more than 600 MB of data from the International Association of Chiefs of Police and took down the IACP’s Website for good measure. Then Anonymous released data which included internal documents, membership rosters, home addresses, passwords, Social Security numbers, etc.

Now, if you agree with Occupy Wall Street, you may feel the hacker group Anonymous has its heart in the right place. But, wherever Anonymous’s heart is, the rest of its geography seems a bit skewed.

As everybody who’s ever lost money in the market knows, Wall Street’s in New York. But Anonymous revealed 1000 names and passwords from the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association; 1000 names, ranks, social security numbers, addresses and phone numbers from Alabama law enforcement systems; and the full contact database from Arlington Virginia’s Matrix Group, a web development agency serving government Websites.

Attacking police in Boston and Alabama to support a protest in New York? Some observers might be tempted to draw a parallel between these Anonymous attacks and the invasion of Iraq as retribution for 911 which was carried out by Bin Laden from Afghanistan.

Anyway…

According to Meghan Kelly in VentureBeat.com, the Anonymous rationale for the attacks wasn’t supposed to be along geographic lines. “Anonymous said it wanted to attack the police directly because they act as a protector of ‘the one percent,’ or what OWS protesters describe as the fortunate few who hold the majority of the wealth that would otherwise benefit the remaining ‘99 percent.’”

Anonymous has attacked police in the past in an effort to “expose corruption and brutality.” In Anonymous’s own words, ““We have no problem targeting police and releasing their information even if it puts them at risk because we want them to experience just a taste of the brutality and misery they serve us on an everyday basis.”  Spoken like somebody who was caught in a speed trap. Or had his/her vehicle ticketed and towed when the meter was busted. Or got cited for jay walking at 3 in the morning on a deserted side street in a hurricane. Sort of sounds like that.

In an odd twist, Kelly points out that a call to the Baldwin County, Alabama Sheriff’s office via Skype came from a man with a British accent, who claimed he hacked the Sheriff’s website because he was bored.  Kelly’s conclusion – the man was calling from the U.K. and this was an example of how Anonymous is “disjointed.”

No matter how anybody feels about Anonymous’s goals, its tactics, which disclose personal identifying information, are either regrettable or reprehensible. No matter which, there’s one solution designed to thwart an Anonymous attack. And that solution comes from ThreatMetrix™. ThreatMetrix doesn’t rely on passwords, user names or any other personal identifying information to protect its clients. Instead the ThreatMetrix™ Cloud-Based Fraud Prevention Platform uses anonymous data from the computer, its connection to the Internet and contextual data from a transaction to stop the bad guys and let the good guys go.