ComputerWorld warns those using a WiFi router about a recent threat. It is strongly recommended to change its password otherwise you might risk to become one of the drive-by "pharming" attack victims which is based on URLs typing – it redirects you to bogus Web sites disguised as legitimate ones. Your private information could then be stolen.The be aware sign was triggered by Symantec security expert and blogger Zulfikar Ramzan who confirmed the existence of such drive-by pharming attacks.

Even if the best time to order a free annual credit report is considered to be the month January, it is also the time when you might get the surprise that someone has used your credit card or identity for getting some extra-money for holidays.

The period from November until January is, as the Identity Theft Resource Center reports, the most prosper moment for the thieves. They are somehow protected by the never ending shopping made now. People love to give, and receive, presents.

As SANS Institute Director of Research Alan Paller declared to SCMagazineUS.com.,
United States desperately seeks for the best ways to supervise all internet traffic to government and private-sector networks “to find the enemy within.” This pressing need was triggered by China’s incisive, non-stop campaign to break into important American government and industry databases.

J.C. Penny appointed the firm GE Money to run its credit card operations. But Thursday, an announcement regarding the lost of a backup tape that held personal details of almost 650,000 shoppers, seemed to reveal a J.C. Penny identity theft.

According to GE the tape has been missing since last October and it contains 150,000 Social Security numbers. A worker at a warehouse run by Iron Mountain Inc noticed the absence.

If so far the most irritating things with social networks were perhaps spam friend requests or “spamful” comments, now things how changed for the worse - MySpace users are in for much distress owing to malicious Windows exploits targeting them. Phishing seems to continue making numerous victims even after such a long time.

By sending phishing emails, the Storm Worm botnet lure people to false banking sites, hosted and controlled by it. That’s why F-Secure and Trend Micro suddenly became interested in. The main issue is represented by the fact that the zombie computer army from 2007 is now separated into many groups, increasing the difficulty to defeat it. These weren’t the expectations for 2008.

Facebook is currently dealing with phishing scam attacks which gather users' login information and passwords. Reportedly, enticing comments tricked some users a few days ago into accessing what seemed to be a valid Facebook link. The page to which the link directs although logs the victims into Facebook it also crops personal data of the user.

The government will offer debit cards instead of paper checks to all Social Security recipients who agree to this new payment method. This will drastically reduce the risk of theft.  

Treasury officials are confident that the new "Direct Express" will ease the life of the Social Security recipients by making grocery esier and avoiding rip-offs.

It's aimed at the 3.9 million people who get the benefits but don't have bank accounts, costing more than $44 million annually in paper checks, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

GFI Software announced the release of the latest version of GFI EndPointSecurity, a solution that helps to control the use of portable storage devices – such as iPods, flash drives, USB sticks and PDAs – on the network and prevent the leakage or theft of sensitive data. The latest version of GFI EndPointSecurity comes with advanced access control functionality and a whitelist/blacklist feature to limit usage of portable devices to those only approved by the company.

Although identity theft tends to raise more and more awareness lately, the information that circles around the subject is hardly sufficient. It seems that the period with the greatest occurrence of such crimes is during holidays when usually people forget about protective measures and become very negligent.