Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is advising customers about unrequested e-mails they may receive for a special invitation from The Oprah Winfrey Show to attend a show taping. The e-mails are unauthorized and part of a con intended to defraud money or gain personal information from consumers.

Some financial institutions last week canceled thousands of credit and debit cards in Michigan due to fraud alarms related to an possible data compromise at a convenience store chain, stressing the wide effect that retail security breaches can have.

ERG Ventures LLC is charged of spreading spyware and adware on the Internet using the infamous Media Motor program.

A federal court has shut down a Nevada business " ERG Ventures LLC -- that the Federal Trade Commission accused of spreading spyware and adware on the Internet using the notorious Media Motor program.

The world’s largest financial institutions experienced a surge in the number of security attacks over the past year, specifically from external sources. More than three-quarters (78%, up from 26% in 2005) of respondents confirmed a security breach from outside the organization and almost half (49%, up from 35% in 2005) experienced at least one internal breach.

Security experts are warning that cyber criminals are harvesting the biggest botnet for over two years – by now close to a million PCs – online.

No one knows yet exactly what despicable activity the army of owned PCs will be used for. But the chances are it will be a massive attack of phishing aimed at defrauding web consumers in the run up to Christmas.

High-tech hackers using spyware are costing US discount brokerages millions of dollars in repayments to clients who have been victimised by fraud, the brokerages have revealed.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission notified earlier this month that scammers were hijacking online brokerage accounts, using spyware and operating from remote locations.

The incident happened over Labor Day weekend, and it is possible that the hackers accessed names, addresses, birth dates, and Social Security numbers of about 230,000 patients and their families, as well as a database containing the bank-account information of about 12,000 donors.

Denver law-enforcement officials are warning people who use file-sharing software, principally LimeWire, to be very cautious for a computer security breach that could put their personal data into the wrong hands.

The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) is advising its members that under U.S. law, government agents may confiscate and search a person´s laptop computer, computer discs, and other electronic media when that person arrives in the U.S. from abroad or departs from the U.S for a foreign country,” we knew from an official communication by the ACTE Executive Director, Susan Gurley.

Richmond based First Market Bank is warning hundreds of its customers that their accounts may have been compromised. The security breach affects roughly one-percent of First Market Bank customers.