According to the Associated Press, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto is warning residents of a new identity theft scam that has been reported in several states. In this scam, residents pose as court employees and claim they are calling about a person’s failure to report for jury duty. They claim that they need personal information, such as a date of birth and Social Security number, to clear up the issue. Some victims have been told they can clear up the issue immediately by paying a fine using their credit card. Masto warns Americans to avoid giving their personal information to anyone over the phone or via email.

According to Gartner, the number of phishing victims increased by 57% over 2006. More than 3.5 million U.S. adults lost money to phishing scams and online identity theft in the 12-month period that ended in August, a 57% increase over the previous year, a Gartner fraud analyst said today.

Gartner analyst Avivah Litan says that 3.3% of the 4,500 Americans polled in August said they had been victimized by a phishing attack and had lost money to scammers. In 2006, the figure was 2.3%. She commented that banking regulators are both “in the dark” and “asleep at the wheel.”

While more people are familiar with the concept of phishing, this does not mean they are immune from the crime. As phishers use new and clever tactics, such as pretending to be victims’ MySpace friends, the number of victims continues to grow.
“It not obvious, like it used to be,” Litan added. “Now malware is being dropped from e-mails, or from advertisements on Web pages, or from compromised Web sites. Click on a link in an ad, and even if you don’t enter any information, you’re still getting infected.”

Gartner’s annual survey also uncovered other shifts in identity theft. For the first time, bank check and debit card account information dominated the target list of phishers. In 2007, 47% of those who lost money said it was through a debit or bank check card, while credit cards accounted for just 32%.

According to m-net, Symantec, a security computer, has drawn up its list of top 10 security threats, naming spam, phishing and data breaches as the biggest concerns. Symantec named data breaches as the number one security threat. The most common cause (46 per cent) of data breaches is the physical loss of equipment. Universities and other education providers accounted for 30% of data breaches, while the Public sector accounted for 26%, and health providers accounted for 15%.

In addition, Symantec points out that Microsoft’s operating system, Vista, is a major security risk. Vista has released 16 security patches for the platform with weaknesses identified in UAC (user access control), third party drivers and the driver signing process allowing malicious code, such as a rootkits, to load into the kernel.

According to Cyveillance, a cyber intelligence company, Thanksgiving saw a major spike in phishing threats, with more than a 300% increase in attacks compared to the average number of phishing attacks seen in the previous week. This one-day spike is a tactic used by criminals around long holiday weekends, often targeting smaller businesses and credit unions, which may not be able to respond to threats that occur during holidays and weekends.

“Cyber criminals continuously look for opportunities to distribute phishing attacks, focusing on situations when consumers are most susceptible,” said Panos Anastassiadis, CEO of Cyveillance. “As seen by the large spike in online attacks over Thanksgiving, online criminals are counting on the hectic holiday season to increase their odds of successfully defrauding consumers and organizations, specifically targeting the most vulnerable security environments.”

Over the “Black Friday” shopping weekend, BitArmor Systems surveyed more than 400 consumers, revealing that more than three of every four shoppers are concerned about companies losing their credit card information to identity thieves and other scammers this holiday season. About two- thirds of those responding to the survey said they will use their credit cards to pay for less than 25% of their holiday gift purchases.

In addition, more than 40 percent of those responding said either they or someone they know has had their identity stolen. Almost 80 percent said they were likely to stop shopping at a store where retailers are not adequately securing their personal data, with 68% saying they are “extremely” likely to take their business elsewhere.