Identity theft just got a new attack venue by stealing somebody's medical records in order to fool the insurance companies and gain some money. Pulling this scam out without getting busted immediately is accomplished by piecing together a synthetic identity from broken pieces of other persons' identities.

The popular social networking site MySpace has been invaded by a phishing scam which makes use of fake Macy’s gift card in order to steal user’s private data.

The "phishing" scam reportedly is targeting the site's younger users, appearing as an email from a friend and prompting them to click on a link to retrieve a $500 Macy's gift certificate.

CRM software vendor Salesforce.com has sent a letter to its customers, warning that they may be the targets of malicious software or phishing scams, after one of its employees received a phishing e-mail message and was tricked into divulging a corporate password.

The FTC created in  2003 a "do not call" registry (which, since, has gain tremendous popularity by preventing telemarketing phone calls) in order to limit the hours that unsolicited telephone calls may be made to consumers and it helped enormously.

Nowadays, the Federal Trade Commission faced a new ‘request’ as it has been asked by nine privacy and consumer organizations to come up with a "do not track" list for internet users who want their online activities not to be tracked, stored and used in advertising purposes.

In the near future we may use pictures and drawings  in order to authenticate ourselves in different password protected areas.  Computer scientists from Newcastle University have developed software that lets the user draw pictures as an alternative to remembering strings of letters and numbers.

The nation's three major credit-reporting agencies are now allowing consumers to put a security freeze on their credit report, an option Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon says is an excellent way to prevent identity theft. A security freeze makes a consumer's credit report unavailable to lenders, which means identity thieves would not be able to open new accounts or lines of credit in the consumer's name.

US-CERT has been notified about many phishing sites that attempt to
trick users to make online donations for fake charity foundations in the
aftermath of the south California Wildfire.

Just like hurricane Katrina was used as phishing bait, the cyber crooks
are using and abusing the American empathy for the victims of California
Wildfires. This is truly unspeakable.

The Wall Street Jurnal writes : By November, consumers in all 50 states will be able to "freeze" their credit reports at the three major credit bureaus to help prevent identity theft.

When you freeze, or lock, your credit files, lenders and other third parties can't access your credit report until you request that the credit bureaus "thaw," or open, it. That means you -- or a potential identity thief -- can't open a line of credit in your name until the credit-reporting companies get written permission from you to let third parties see your information.

eBay, PayPal and Yahoo announced that they have started a joined effort to protect Yahoo Mail customers from phishing, especially financial scams such as eBay or PayPal phishing.

Yahoo's Domain Keys technology is brand new and it will block e-mail messages that claim to come from eBay or PayPal but really originate elsewhere.

A group of Carnegie Mellon University students have designed a video game which aims to teach the users about the danger of falling in phishing traps set by the cyber crooks.

In a very intuitive way, Phil, a small fish, learns how to identify phishing URLs, where to look for cues in web browsers, and how to use search engines to find legitimate sites.