Symantec has bought identity theft protection firm LifeLock for $2.3bn. The deal, announced Sunday, represents a brave bid by Symantec to shore up a consumer security business eroded by dwindling anti-virus sales. Selling Norton consumer security alongside identity protection and remediation services from LifeLock will enable …

Last year saw a surge in identity fraud against young UK adults, according to official figures published today. Cifas' data reveals identity fraud victims aged 30 and under rose 52 per cent in 2015. Just under 24,000 (23,959) people aged 30 and under were victims of identity fraud, according to figures from the UK’s leading …

UpdatedEnemies of investigative reporter Brian Krebs took over his PayPal account twice on Christmas Eve, but were foiled on both occasions in their attempts to transfer funds to an account associated with an assassinated jihadist hacker, he said. Krebs, who has been the target of several previous unsuccessful attempts to discredit …

Leicestershire – slap-bang in the middle of rural England – has leapfrogged London as the UK’s electronic device-theft capital, according to a comparison of police force stats. A series of FoI (Freedom of Information) requests by ViaSat showed 51 per cent of thefts in Leicestershire were of electronic devices, compared with 27 …

In the aftermath of the massive hack attack on Sony Pictures – which the US government continues to insist was carried out by North Korea – President Barak Obama is expected to lobby hard for legislative overhauls to battle online threats. He will reveal those proposals early next week, an unnamed White House spokesperson told …

Criminals are picking through gigabytes of leaked personal information from Sony Pictures' ransacked computer network, triggering identity theft alerts, staff have told The Register. We're told crooks are, as is inevitable these days, mining files dumped online by hackers, who comprehensively compromised the movie studio's …

Internet-enabled frauds reached £670m across the UK in the 12 months running up to the end of August, according to new figures from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. Since the majority of internet-enabled fraud cases still go unreported, the true economic cost to the UK is likely to be significantly higher. The figures …

Several US states have launched an investigation into a subsidiary of credit reference bureau Experian after a fraudster allegedly bought millions of consumers' personal data from it. Vietnamese national Hieu Minh Ngo allegedly used information obtained through Experian subsidiary Court Ventures to run two identity fraud- …

Greek police have cuffed a suspect who allegedly stole personal data of three-quarters of the country's population as part of an attempted industrial-scale ID theft scam. The unnamed 35-year-old computer programmer is suspected of attempting to flog nine million records containing ID card data, addresses, tax identification …

An alleged US Army deserter has been charged with stealing the identity of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen to run a bank fraud scam. Brandon Price, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, allegedly conned Citibank call centre workers into changing Allen’s address to that of Price’s modest home – as well as changing the phone number …

A suspected Russian cyber-crook has arrived in the US to face charges of security fraud, computer hacking and ID theft following his deportation from Switzerland. Vladimir Zdorovenin, 54, of Moscow, Russia, is alleged to have masterminded a series of credit card theft and stock manipulation scams in conjunction with his son, …

A recidivist ID theft fraudster who used a people search website to verify the authenticity of stolen social security credentials has been jailed for more than 16 years. Todd Yurgin, 41, of Newark, Delaware, earned the severe sentence because he had twice previously been convicted of federal fraud offences. In sentencing, …

A computer hacker who posed as a student and used key-logging software to break into the email accounts of genuine students has been ordered to pay £21,000 in compensation and ordered to complete a 200-hour community service order. Daniel Woo, 23, a Bulgarian resident in London, avoided going to jail but received an eight- …

A California IT worker has been jailed for a year for stealing confidential data to make money by completing online health surveys. Cam Giang, 31, a former worker at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, used the names, birthdays and Social Security numbers of other hospital workers to complete online …

A devious mother posed as another parent in an attempt to remove a rival child's name from a school waiting list. The woman created a fraudulent Gmail account to fool school authorities at the "outstanding" Coleridge primary school in Crouch End, London. Using this fake account and quoting the name and correct date of birth …

Britain plans to expel an Israeli diplomat over the use of counterfeit UK passports in the Dubai murder of a Hamas military commander, the BBC reports. Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, founder of Hamas's military wing, was murdered in a Dubai hotel room on 19 January by members of a 27-strong hit squad who entered the Arab state using fake …

US net crime loss complaints almost doubled in value from $265m in 2008 to reach $560m last year, according to official figures. An annual report of the FBI-backed Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), published on Friday, reports that the unit handled 336,655 complaints in 2009, a 22.3 percent increase on 2008. Around 16 …

Dubai police have named 15 more suspects - all reckoned to have entered the UAE using counterfeit Western passports - wanted over the murder of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the Gulf state last month. The new suspects - alleged to have laid the groundwork for the main 11 person hit squad by providing logistical support …