Group items tagged

A TV investigation has revealed that secondhand BlackBerries on Nigerian markets are priced according to the data held on them, not the age or the model of a phone. Jon Godfrey, director of Sims LifeCycle Services, who is advising on a TV investigation into the trade due to screen later this year, said that BlackBerries sell for between $25 to $65 on Lagos markets. Details of the trade come from an agent in Nigeria unaffiliated to Sims' technology recycling business. Godfrey explained that the smart phones offered for sale come from the US, continental Europe and the UK. "It's unclear as yet whether the phones are either sold, thrown away, lost or stolen," Godfrey explained. Other type of smartphone are also of potential interest to data thieves, but it is the trade in BlackBerries that seems to be the most active. Data retrieved from smartphones is itraded by crooks in Nigeria. BlackBerries include technology to remotely wipe devices and come with built-in encryption. But this encryption is often left switched off because it is considered an inconvenience.

Fraud on the Internet reported to U.S. authorities increased by 33 percent last year, rising for the first time in three years, and is surging this year as the recession deepens, federal authorities said on Monday. Internet fraud losses reported in the United States reached a record high $264.6 million in 2008, according to a report released on Monday from the Internet Fraud Complaint Center, run by the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. Online scams originating from across the globe -- mostly from the United States, Canada, Britain, Nigeria and China -- are gathering steam this year with a nearly 50 percent increase in complaints reported to U.S. authorities in March alone. "2009 is shaping up to be a very busy year in terms of cyber-crime," the report's author, John Kane, told reporters in a telephone briefing. Last year's losses compared with $239.1 million in 2007 and dwarfs the $18 million of losses of 2001.

A third (34 per cent) of discarded hard disk drives still contain confidential data, according to a new study which unearthed copies of hospital records and sensitive military information on eBayed kit. The study, sponsored by BT and Sims Lifecycle Services and run by the computer science labs at University of Glamorgan in Wales, Edith Cowan University in Australia and Longwood University in the US, also found network data and security logs from the German Embassy in Paris on one purchased drive. Researchers bought 300 drives from eBay, other auction sites, second-hand stalls and car boot sales. A disk bought on eBay contained details of test launch routines for the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) ground to air missile defence system. The same disk also held information belonging to the system's manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, including blueprints of facilities and personal data on workers, including social security numbers. Lockheed Martin denies that the disk came from it. The arm manufacturer has launched an investigation that aims to uncover just how the sensitive data might have been wound up on the disk. Two discs bought in the UK apparently came from Lanarkshire NHS Trust, including patient medical records, images of X-rays and staff letters. Lanarkshire NHS Trust runs the Monklands and Hairmyres hospitals. In Australia, the exercise turned up a disk from a nursing home that contained pictures of actual patients and their wound photos, along with patient details. A hard disk from a US bank contained account numbers and details of plans for a $50bn currency exchange through Spain. Details of business transactions between the bank and organisations in Venezuela, Tunisia and Nigeria were also included. Correspondence between a member of the Federal Reserve Board and the unnamed banks revealed that one of the deals was already under scrutiny by the European Central Bank, and that federal investigators were also taking an interest. Yet anothe