Archive for March, 2009

A Computrace customer was in an accident while driving home on the Interstate. She was sent to the hospital with minor injuries, while her car -along with her laptop which was housed in the trunk- was towed. Days later when the customer was fully recovered and able to retrieve her car from the towing lot, she realized that her laptop was missing. She reported the theft to local police and the Absolute Theft Recovery Team.

Absolute was soon able to identify the laptop’s user – a computer repairman who operated out of a nearby shop. These details were forwarded to police, who visited the identified user and probed for additional information.

The user alleged to authorities that he had obtained possession of the stolen laptop after a female – who just so happened to work for the same towing company that had towed the car – had asked for his assistance. She had requested that the repairman remove any existing passwords that protected the laptop. The repairman told police, however, that he had found her request to be suspicious, and decided it was wisest not to get further involved. He happily handed the laptop over to police, and has cooperated with authorities as they continue to investigate the towing company employee. Charges are expected.

The laptop is en route to its rightful owner.

Learn more about the Absolute Theft Recovery process

Please note that indictments and criminal complaints are merely unproven accusations and the accused, in all cases, re presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Absolute Software has a very busy event calendar coming up. If you are going to any of these events, stop by the booth to say hi! We’d love to talk. Here are just some of the events where we’ll be (see the full list here):

• HIMSS 2009 (April 5 – 9) in Chicago, IL
• IDF Beijing (April 8) in Beijing, CH
• RSA 2009 (April 20-24) in San Francisco, CA
• Infosecurity Europe (April 28-30) Earls Court, London, UK
• Gartner IT Security Summit 2009 (June 28 – July 1) in Washington, DC
• NECC (June 28 – July 1) in Washington, DC

If you would like to set up an appointment with an Absolute representative at any of these events, you can reach us at 1-800-220-0733.

If you can’t make it out to one of these events, you can reach us in a myriad of ways. You’ll find our contact information here.

Absolute began tracking a Computrace equipped laptop the day after it was reported stolen by a California middle school. The user’s online activity revealed that he was arranging for the sale of the stolen machine and would be meeting two interested buyers at a coffee shop the following day to complete the transaction.

Absolute handed this information over to police, who waited patiently at the identified cafe in hopes of nabbing the unauthorized user. Within the hour, the suspect appeared with laptop in hand, and seated himself beside two individuals. The three discussed the details of the laptop sale, though before the final transaction could be made, the overlooking authorities stepped in, the laptop recovered, and the thief arrested onsite.

Further investigation into the suspect revealed that he was a probationer with a criminal history that dated back well before 1960. Adding to his impressive list of criminal acts, the elderly man can now also boast charges of computer theft and burglary.

The laptop has since been returned to the middle school.

Learn more about the Absolute Theft Recovery process

Please note that indictments and criminal complaints are merely unproven accusations and the accused, in all cases, re presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Despite the fact that the Garter study showed that only 5% of Americans report cases of fraud to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), that’s still enough data for the FTC to release a report of their own. They put out the Top Consumer Complaints in 2008 showing that the top complaint was identity theft. You can imagine how much higher the figures would be if consumers reporting were higher.

The FTC report showed that, for the 9th year in a row, identity theft was the number one consumer complaint category. Of the 1,223,370 complaints received, 26% were related to identity theft.

The report breaks down the identity theft complaints into type. The most common form of reported identity theft is credit card fraud (20%) followed by government document/benefits fraud (15%), employment fraud (15%), phone or utilities fraud (13%), bank fraud (11%) and loan fraud (4%).

If you are a victim of identity theft, learn how to file a complaint with the FTC here.

In related news, research in the UK indicates that 1 in 3 Britons is expected to be a victim of card fraud in 2009 – a 33% increase over 2008. You can read more about that here.

Image: Clipart

Absolute recently recovered a laptop for a Surrey, BC customer. Upon hearing of the successful recovery of his computer, the customer sent us the following recount:

If you use a laptop computer at work or at home, then I’d advise you to read the following story.

In July 2006, my associate and I suffered a break-in at our office. We lost numerous monitors, gadgets, and other stuff – including my new laptop. The police had no workable evidence, leads, or suspects, and so considered our stuff to be long gone.

Luckily, when I bought my laptop, the salesman had suggested I also buy a nifty little product called LoJack for Laptops. Basically, it hides in the laptop’s firmware and pings the Absolute Monitoring Center with its whereabouts whenever the laptop logs onto the Internet. This allows Absolute to track down the laptop’s location – and was a smart purchase, as I later discovered. 

In the months that followed the theft, I gradually became resigned to the loss of the laptop, and more painfully so, the years of family history research it contained. The backup disk was also in the laptop case at the time of theft, so I was more or less pooched. Big time. It was very discouraging.

Then, on February 16, 2009, the Absolute Monitoring Center heard a lonely little ping from the Internet. The Absolute Recovery Team was able to use this to determine the laptop’s location, which they passed on to the RCMP. Yesterday, RCMP visited the identified address, knocked on the door, and got the computer back. 

The machine was recovered, and all of my family data remains intact.

If you get the idea that I am promoting this product, you would be right. If you value your laptop, I would whole-heartedly suggest that you visit the LoJack for Laptops website and grab a copy.

                                                                                                                       Ian Wraight, B.Sc, C.G.A

                                                                                                                       Nutri-Lawn South; Surrey, BC

A flight attendant placed her laptop on her seat while she welcomed oncoming passengers of a soon-to-be-departing plane. When she returned to her seat 20 minutes later, the laptop was gone. With several passengers entering, along with a number of contractors onboard to prepare the plane for departure, identifying the culprit seemed hopeless. Despite several checks with the airport’s lost and found, her computer could not be located. Luckily, the laptop was equipped with LoJack for Laptops, so the flight attendant turned to Absolute for help.

The Absolute Recovery Team was able to quickly provide area police with information on laptop’s unauthorized user. Police were then able to positively match this name with that of a contractor employee who had been working at the same airport and had serviced the plane from which the laptop was stolen. Through the course of the investigation, the employee could not be reached as she was home on sick leave.  While home, however, she continued to use the stolen laptop, providing Absolute and police with additional evidence.

When the employee finally returned to work, police questioned her on the laptop’s disappearance. When confronted with the evidence Absolute had provided, she made full admission to the laptop theft. After handing the computer over to police, was arrested and charged with Criminal Possession of Stolen Property. The contractor was promptly fired from her position at the airport, and the flight attendant has happily reclaimed her laptop.

Learn more about the Absolute Theft Recovery process.

Please note that indictments and criminal complaints are merely unproven accusations and the accused, in all cases, are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

According to a new report from Gartner, 7.5% of Americans were victims of financial fraud in 2008. Data breaches were the main cause of the financial losses.

Gartner, in its survey of 5,000 adults, showed that 70% of respondents had never been a victim of identity theft / fraud. For those who have, the breakdown includes 14% of respondents who had their credit card data used, 7% had their debit card used, 6% had a new account opened in their name, 5% were the victims of money transfer fraud and 4% had checks forged.

Of those who had been victims of fraud, 19% cited a data breach as the cause. That is the highest figure cited, after which were wallet theft (16%) and online scams (13%). This data clearly shows that data breaches are leading to incidents of identity theft and fraud.

Victims of certain types of fraud are able to recover more easily than others. The cost of most credit card fraud, for example, is not borne by the consumer. However, the survey found that bank account fraud can damage credit rating, sometimes with damage that lasts for more than a year.

The survey indicates that less than one-third of victims reported these crimes to law enforcement and only 5% reported it to the Federal Trade Commission.

Via pogowasright, finextra, CNET ; Image: morguefile / penywise

A consortium of federal agencies and private organizations announced the Consensus Audit
Guidelines (CAG) last week. This list of 20 items defines the most critical security controls needed to protect federal and contractor information and information systems. These guidelines won’t duplicate or replace existing federal IT security requirements, but rather supplement the standards (like FISMA).

The CAG initiative is part of a larger effort to advance recommendations from the CSIS Commission report on Cybersecurity for the 44th Presidency. The goal of the consortium was to come up with a risk-based standard to counter known forms of cyber attack. The 20 actions should help the government or private organizations mitigate or prevent cyber attacks. The controls cover areas including access controls, wireless security, data leakage and training. Each control details what threat it covers and how the control could be automated & tested for effectiveness.

20 Controls & Metrics for Effective Cyber Defense

1. Inventory of authorized and unauthorized hardware.
2. Inventory of authorized and unauthorized software; enforcement of white lists of authorized software.
3. Secure configurations for hardware and software on laptops, workstations, and servers.
4. Secure configurations of network devices such as firewalls, routers, and switches.
5. Boundary Defense
6. Maintenance, Monitoring and Analysis of Complete Audit Logs
7. Application Software Security
8. Controlled Use of Administrative Privileges
9. Controlled Access Based On Need to Know
10. Continuous Vulnerability Testing and Remediation
11. Dormant Account Monitoring and Control
12. Anti-Malware Defenses
13. Limitation and Control of Ports, Protocols and Services
14. Wireless Device Control
15. Data Leakage Protection
16. Secure Network Engineering
17. Red Team Exercises
18. Incident Response Capability
19. Data Recovery Capability
20. Security Skills Assessment and Appropriate Training To Fill Gaps

The CAG is still in draft and they are actively soliciting criticism and suggestions. You can learn more about how to contact them here for most of March. After a public review of the standards, pilots will be conducted in several federal agencies and the draft will be reviewed and audited.

Hat tip to Dave Jevans ; Image: Clipart

If you saw the TV show 30 Rock last week, Liz Lemon left her mobile phone in a cab, and then the cabbie held it for ransom. We see people leave their laptops in cabs all the time, but unlike the show, the stories are definitely not funny.  Recently, a LoJack for Laptops customer placed his laptop in the cab he had hailed, but before he too could get in the vehicle, the driver sped off. He immediately called the driver directly, but was told that another passenger had just been dropped off and his laptop was gone. He then contacted the cab company who also confronted the driver in question, only to have the driver deny any knowledge of the laptop.  The exasperated customer reported the stolen laptop to police and turned to Absolute Software for help.

The laptop logged on to the Internet the day after it went missing, allowing the Absolute Recovery Team to trace its whereabouts. The team was quick to extract information on the laptop’s unauthorized user -details that indicated the computer was in fact in the hands of the driver. Absolute passed this evidence on to police, who continued the investigation.

Detectives discovered that the driver held an outstanding complaint report for an unrelated matter, and so called the suspect into the precinct to discuss this complaint. When later confronted with details of the stolen laptop, the driver alleged that the customer had given him the computer as payment for services rendered. Less than convinced by the suspect’s dubious account, police arrested the driver on charges of Criminal Possession of Stolen Property. The laptop has been recovered and returned to another satisfied LoJack for Laptops customer.

Learn more about the Absolute Recovery Process.

Please note that the indictments and criminal complaints are merely unproven accusations, and the accused, in all cases, are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Infection from the “VideoPlay” adware has been on the rise, just one indication that social media is being targeted for malware attacks. This particular adware, which is spread through malicious posts and comments on sites like Digg and YouTube, went up 400% from January to February.

What is adware? “Any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer after the software is installed on it or while the application is being used.” – Wikipedia

The VideoPlay adware is a worm that aims to steal login information as well as any other information stored in a user’s browser – such as passwords. The worm can then use stolen access, such as that for social networking sites, to leave more malicious comments.

On Digg.com, the VideoPlay adware was left in comments. The comment would contain a link to a celebrity video, many of which prey upon videos already popular, or a pornographic video. However, the link would prompt users to download a codec to view the video file – this would contain the adware. The comments are being left via an automated script with more than 500,000 malicious comments tracked, according to SC Magazine.

The YouTube hosting of the VideoPlay adware is occurring through the Annotations feature to point to a URL left in the video information box. The malware is not as prevalent on YouTube yet, but it’s only time before more attacks of this sort begin to spread through social media sites.

The increase in the infection rate of the worm indicates that the adware strategy is working. Be wary when clicking links and don’t fall for strategies that require you to install new ’software’ to view any videos.