Page 323 - Introduction to Electronic Commerce and Social Commerce

310 10 E-Commerce Security and Fraud Issues and Protections

Any e-mail you receive asking for personal details is most For information and protection, see idtheftcenter.org and
likely a scam or phishing attempt since a legitimate organiza- fdic.gov/consumers/theft.
tion will already have all your personal information. For tips
from Yahoo! on how to protect yourself online, see Yahoo!
Safety (safety.yahoo.com). Cyber Bank Robberies

Cyberattacks can happen to individuals and organizations,
Top Ten Attacks and Remedies including banks.

IT security site Secpoint.com provides a list of the top ten Example: Secureworks.com
security-related attacks on the following topics: Top viruses, Secureworks.com uncovered the following check fraud opera-
spyware, spam, worms, phishing, hacker attacks, and hack- tions: Russian cybercriminals used “money mules” (people
ers and social engineering tactics. In addition, the site pro- who thought they were signing up for a legitimate job), 2000
vides related pages on IT security resources such as the top computers, and sophisticated hacking methods to steal archived
ten hackers; top ten security tips and tools; pages relating to check images from five companies, and wire the collected
Anti phishing, Anti DoS, Anti spam, and more. For SecPoint money overseas.
IT resources for top ten spam attacks, see secpoint.com/Top- Next, the scammers printed counterfeit checks, which the
10-Spam-Attacks.html. money mules deposited in their own accounts. Then, the
mules were ordered to wire (transfer) the money to a bank in
Russia. The “mules,” as usual, were innocent people who
Identity Theft and Identify Fraud were hired and paid to do the transfer. Some of the mules
became suspicious and reported the scam to the authorities.
Identity theft, according to the United States Department of
Justice website, is a crime. It refers to wrongfully obtaining
and using the identity of another person in some way to com- Spam Attacks
mit crimes that involve fraud or deception (e.g., for economic
gain). Victims can suffer serious damages. In many countries, E-mail spam, also known as junk e-mail or just spam,
it is a crime to assume another person’s identity. According occurs when almost identical messages are e-mailed to
to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (ftc.gov), identity many recipients in bulk (sometimes millions of unsolicited
theft is one of the major concerns of EC shoppers. According e-mails). According to Symantec, in April 2009, over 90%
to the FTC statistics, identity theft affects over 12 million of messages on corporate networks were e-mail spam.
Americans each year, for a loss of over $55 billion, and is Nearly 58% of spam came from botnets, the worst called
growing about 20% annually. For an entertaining comedy, Dotnet. The situation is better today (2016) due to improved
see the 2013 movie “Identity Thief.” filtering of junk mail. Spammers can purchase millions of
e-mail addresses, and then format the addresses, cut and
Example paste the messages and press “send.” Mass e-mail software
According to Constantin (2016), identity thieves stole 100,000 that generates, sends, and automates spam e-mail sending is
social security numbers and other personal data from the U.S. called Ratware. The messages can be advertisements (to
IRS files. buy a product), fraud-based, or just annoying viruses. For
current statistics on spam, see securelist.com/statistics.
Identity Fraud Securelist is a comprehensive site that also provides descrip-
tions of spam and viruses, a glossary, and information on
Identity fraud refers to assuming the identity of another per- threats. More than 130 billion spam e-mails are sent each
son or creating a fictitious person and then unlawfully using day as of 2013, but this growth rate has stabilized. Note that
that identity to commit a crime. Typical activities include: approximately 80% of all spam is sent by fewer than 200
spammers. These spammers are using spyware and other
• Opening a credit card account in the victim’s name tools mostly for sending unsolicited advertising. The spam-
• Making a purchase using a false identity (e.g., using anoth- mers are getting more and more sophisticated (e.g., see
er’s identity to buy goods) Kaiser 2014).
• Business identity theft is using another’s business name to
obtain credit or to get into a partnership Typical Examples of Spamming
• Posing as another to commit a crime
• Conducting money laundering (e.g., organized crime) Each month Symantec provides a report titled “The State of
using a fake identity Spam: A Monthly Report.” The report provides examples of