Identity Theft News

Hacker pleads guilty in identity theft scam defrauding Wal-Mart

Thursday, September 10, 2009

A Sacramento, California, hacker pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and identity theft for his involvement in an international cyberscam that used personal information stolen with phishing sites to open fraudulent Wal-Mart credit accounts.

Tien "Tim" Truong Nguyen pleaded guilty on Tuesday, the day before his case was set to go to trial, according to IDG News Service. Prosecutors said he had set up websites that used phishing tactics to dupe people into disclosing their personal information.

With the help of Romanian cybercriminals, Nguyen used the phishing websites to steal information that he supplied to others to open Wal-Mart instant credit accounts in stores throughout northern California, IDG News reported.

According to the mid-year online threat report from IBM, phishing spam made up just 0.1 percent of all spam email in the first six months of this year, down from 0.2 percent to 0.8 percent of spam during the first half of 2008.

However, identity thieves can launch phishing attacks by poisoning search results with phony websites and other tactics to lure victims. Phishing fools as many as 55,000 new victims each month, according to one report.

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