The FBI says Business Email Compromise scams are growing at astronomical rates, and businesses have lost $5.3 billion since 2013; $346 million in the U.S. alone in the second half of 2016.

Notorious spammer Peter Levashov was arrested over the weekend; Levashov is the alleged botmaster behind the Kelihos botnet.

Researchers from Dell SecureWorks infiltrated a Nigerian business email spoofing and business email compromise operation, shutting down a number of money mule accounts in the process.

A research paper describes vulnerabilities enabling distributed guessing attacks which allow an attacker to collect payment card data across a number of sites without triggering alerts.

Tesco Bank, a U.K. retail bank, today put a halt to online transactions from current accounts after some customers reported over the weekend money missing from their accounts.

LAS VEGAS – Poor operational security on the part of Nigerian scammers running a Business Email Compromise (BEC) scheme has given researchers a window into their operations. Dell SecureWorks today published a report at Black Hat USA 2016 on what the criminals involved call wire-wire, or “waya-waya.” These attackers aren’t particularly sophisticated malware coders, for...

Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, a nationwide chain of 62 boutique hotels, is investigating a string of unauthorized charges on payment cards used at a number of its locations. It’s unknown how many cards are involved, nor at which locations. A Kimpton representative told Threatpost that an investigation is ongoing and no further information was available....

A 400 percent surge in tax-related phishing and malware incidents is making this tax season the most treacherous yet for taxpayers. According to an Internal Revenue Service bulletin, this year’s attacks include the tried-and-true email phishing, but also newer forms of attacks that include bogus text messages and attempts to trick people into handing over...

Mike Mimoso and Chris Brook discuss the week in news, including the Linux zero day–how it was patched in Android, Twitter users sent nation state messages that are still looking for answers, and bot fraud. Download: news_wrap_01-08-16.mp3 Music by Chris Gonsalves

Mitigating fraud has long been an uphill battle for the online advertising world and numbers released Tuesday indicate it’s been a pricey one. The industry is poised to lose a combined $7.2 billion worldwide this year thanks to bogus ad fraud bots, according to a study carried out this past summer by the Association of National...