Identity thieves were busy during 2014, but a new study estimates that U.S. consumers actually suffered fewer losses than in the past.

According to the 2015 Identity Fraud Study from Javelin Strategy & Research, the number of identity fraud victims decreased slightly last year, dropping by three percent from 2013. All totaled, Javelin estimates 12.7 million U.S. consumers were victimized in identity theft in 2014, compared to 13.1 million the previous year. Total fraud losses fell as well, dropping from $ 18 billion in 2013 to $ 16 billion in 2014.

In another bright spot in the report, new account fraud – where a scammer opens a new account in the name of the victim – appears to have hit a record low in 2014. The good news does not go much further than that however. The report also found that victims of new account fraud are three times more likely to take a year or more to discover that their identities were misused than victims of other types of fraud.

Additionally, while incidents of identity fraud may have declined, they had a lasting impact on the spending habits of some of the victims. According to the survey, 28 percent of the 5,000 people surveyed said they avoided merchants after being victims of fraud. In addition, individuals whose credit or debit cards were breached in the past year were nearly three times more likely to be an identity fraud victim.

While students were the least concerned about fraud, Javelin found students were actually the most impacted. Though 64 percent said they were unconcerned with fraud, the group reported feeling more impact when fraud occurred, with 15 percent classifying it as moderate or severe. Students are also the least likely to detect identity fraud themselves. Some 22 percent said they were notified of the situation by a debt collector or when they were denied credit, three times higher than the average fraud victim.

“Despite the headlines, the occurrence of identity fraud hasn’t changed much over the past year, and it is still a significant problem,” said Al Pascual, director of fraud & security, Javelin Strategy & Research, in a statement. “Consumers, financial institutions and retailers are all taking aggressive steps, yet we must remain vigilant. The criminals will continue to find new ways to commit fraud, so taking advantage of available technology and services to protect against, detect and resolve identity fraud is a must for all individuals and corporations.”

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• Cybercrime

U.S. Offers $ 3 Million Reward for Russian Sought in Bank Hack

Washington – The United States on Tuesday offered a $ 3 million reward for information to apprehend a Russian national sought in a major hacking enterprise that stole some $ 100 million.

The State Department made the announcement of the reward for information on Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev, believed to be the administrator of the group that created the “GameOver Zeus” malware that enabled thieves to break into bank accounts in 12 countries.

Bogachev is already on the FBI “cyber’s most wanted” list and is believed to be living in Russia.

“This reward offer reaffirms the commitment of the US government to bring those who participate in organized crime to justice, whether they hide online or overseas,” a State Department statement said.

Bogachev was charged last year with 14 counts including conspiracy, computer hacking, bank fraud and money laundering, after the FBI said it dismantled the operation with the help of technology companies such as Microsoft and Symantec.

According to investigators, the scheme used emails to infect up to one million computers, which could then be controlled by the hackers to gain bank login credentials to steal funds.

Some security experts said the malware re-emerged shortly after the FBI action.

Related: Gameover Zeus Most Prevalent Banking Trojan of 2013: Dell SecureWorks

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Hackers supporting Islamic State jihadists briefly took control of the Twitter and YouTube accounts of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the Department of Defense confirmed Monday.

In the attack, hackers replaced the main banner for CENTCOM’s Twitter account with an image of a masked fighter along with the words “CyberCaliphate” and “I love you ISIS”.

The attackers Tweeted and posted a message to Pastebin saying, “You’ll see no mercy infidels. ISIS is already here, we are in your PCs, in each military base. With Allah’s permission we are in CENTCOM now. We won’t stop! We know everything about you, your wives and children. U.S. soldiers! We’re watching you!” 

The attackers also posted information and details on Military personnel and photos, including a phone directory of officers, which some say it out-of-date and already publically available.

“We can confirm that the US Central Command Twitter and YouTube accounts were compromised earlier today. We are taking appropriate measures to address the matter,” a Deparment of Defense representative said in a statement.

Related: ISIS Cyber Ops: Empty Threat or Reality?

The @CENTCOM Twitter account was suspended at the time of publishing, but the Department of Defense said that it has regained control of the compromised accounts.

“The account compromised was timed with the release of a couple of sensitive documents on Pastebin, which appears to have been designed to intimidate US soldiers,” Trey Ford, Global Security Strategist at Rapid7, told SecurityWeek. “One thing to note: the Sony document dumps were laced with malware, and I expect these files may also be part of a targeted malware campaign targeting military analysts and their families.”

“This attack looks to be the same actors as the WBOC and Albuquerque Journal‎ attacks last week,” Ian Amit, Vice President at ZeroFOX, said. “The verbiage is the same, the behavior is the same, the hashtags are the same — all indicators suggest this is the same group. The full extent of the damage: 3 Twitter accounts and 1 YouTube account.”

“Much of this appears to be simply scare tactics,” Amit added. “All of the “leaked” documents are in fact public domain, repackaged to look like a real data breach. These actors are trying to make themselves look more legitimate by threatening soldiers wives and claiming to have mobile access. In truth, they likely only stole a password, either through a phishing scam or a brute-force attack.”

On Sunday, European, US and Canadian security ministers said that increased Internet surveillance and tighter border checks were “urgently” needed to combat jihadist attacks of the sort that shocked Paris last week. 

U.S CENTCOM promotes cooperation among nations, responds to crises, and deters or defeats state and non-state aggression.

One of nine unified commands in the U.S. military, CENTCOM’s has an area of responsibility in the central area of the world consisting of 20 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, SaudiArabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.

The attacks against CENTCOM came just as President Obama give an address and announced a series of initiatives designed to enhance the nation’s cybersecurity and privacy environment.

Related: ISIS Cyber Ops: Empty Threat or Reality?

Related: Social Media a Key Element for Terror Groups

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• NEWS & INDUSTRY

The United States is at the top of the list of countries with the most infections of point-of-sale (PoS) malware during the third quarter of the year, according to research from Trend Micro.

In its threat report for Q3, Trend Micro reported that the U.S. accounted for 30 percent of PoS malware infections. The next three places on the list – Taiwan, Philippines and Italy – each accounted for six percent of infections.

“Early this year, one of the largest retail companies in the U.S. disclosed that approximately 40 million consumer credit and debit card information was compromised as a result of a breach in its systems,” according to the report. “Not long afterward, Home Depot topped that record when it disclosed that more than 100 million customer records that included credit card information was stolen as a result of a payment systems breach. The threat actors behind these breaches attacked the retailers’ point-of-sale (PoS) systems. BlackPOS was implicated in the incident reported early this year, while BlackPOS version 2 was used in the Home Depot breach. This further indicates that PoS networks are highly accessible and vulnerable.”

The report identified three new pieces of PoS malware that were spotted during the third quarter: BrutPOS (Tibrun), Backoff (POSLOGR) and BlackPOS Version 2 (MEMLOG).

Recently, researchers at Trend Micro identified a new piece of PoS malware detected by the firm as TSPY_POSLOGR.K that is designed to read the memory associated with specific processes written in the .INI file. It then saves the data to files named “rep.bin” and “rep.tmp.”

“Based on the other PoS malware behaviors we observed, it appears to be designed as multicomponent malware similar to an earlier BlackPOS variant named TSPY_MEMLOG.A, as it might require another component to retrieve the dumped data,” Anthony Joe Melgarejo, threat response engineer at Trend Micro, explained in a blog post. “It is highly possible that this is deployed as a package.”

The report also noted a spike in online banking malware infections between the second and third quarters. As in the case of PoS malware, the United States was the most affected country, accounting for about 13 percent of infections.

“Our findings confirm that we are battling rapidly moving cybercriminals and evolving vulnerabilities simultaneously,” said Raimund Genes, CTO at Trend Micro, in a statement. “With this fluidity, it’s time to embrace the fact that compromises will continue, and we shouldn’t be alarmed or surprised when they occur.  Preparation is key and as an industry we must better educate organizations and consumers about heightened risks as attacks grow in volume and in sophistication. Understanding that cybercriminals are finding vulnerabilities and potential loopholes in every device and platform possible will help us confront these challenges so technology can be used in a positive way.”

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• Virus & Malware