The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), a partnership between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), released the 2009 Annual Report about fraudulent activity on the Internet today.

Online crime complaints increased substantially once again last year, according to the report. The IC3 received a total of 336,655 complaints, a 22.3 percent increase from 2008. The total loss linked to online fraud was $559.7 million; this is up from $265 million in 2008.

Year Complaints Received Dollar Loss
2009 336,655 $559.7 million
2008 275,284 $265 million
2007 206,884 $239.09 million
2006 207,492 $198.44 million
2005 231,493 $183.12 million

Although the complaints consisted of a variety of fraud types, advanced fee scams that fraudulently used the FBI’s name ranked number one (16.6 percent). Non-delivery of merchandise and/or payment was the second most reported offense (11.9 percent).

The 2009 Annual Report details information related to the volume and scope of complaints, complainant and perpetrator characteristics, geographical data, most frequently reported scams and results of IC3 referrals.

“Law enforcement relies on the corporate sector and citizens to report when they encounter on-line suspicious activity so these schemes can be investigated and criminals can be arrested,” stated Peter Trahon, Section Chief of the FBI’s Cyber Division. “Computer users are encouraged to have up-to-date
security protection on their devices and evaluate email solicitations they receive with a healthy skepticism—if something seems too good to be true, it likely is.”

NW3C Director Donald Brackman said the report’s findings underscore the threat posed by cyber criminals. “The figures contained in this report indicate that criminals are continuing to take full advantage of the anonymity afforded them by the Internet.

They are also developing increasingly sophisticated means of defrauding unsuspecting consumers. Internet crime is evolving in ways we couldn’t have imagined just five years ago.” But Brackman sounded an optimistic tone about the future. “With the public’s continued support, law enforcement will be better able to track down these perpetrators and bring them to justice.”

The report is posted in its entirety on the IC3 website.

About IC3

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a joint operation between the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). IC3 receives, develops,
and refers criminal complaints regarding the rapidly expanding arena of cyber crime. The IC3 gives the victims of cyber crime a convenient and easy-to-use reporting mechanism utilized to alert authorities of suspected criminal or civil violations. For law enforcement and regulatory agencies at the federal, state, local and international level, the IC3 provides a central referral mechanism for complaints involving Internet-related crimes.

Germany and China Round out Top Three Countries with Web Servers Serving Malware

AMSTERDAM–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AVG Technologies, makers of the world’s most popular free anti-virus software, today unveiled the results of a research study which shows that – contrary to popular opinion – most malicious websites are hosted on US servers and not in other countries like China.

“The results of this study shatter the myth that malicious code is primarily hosted in countries where e-crime laws are less developed”

The AVG research study is based on the analysis of threats reported during the last 6 months from AVG’s 110 million worldwide users of its LinkScanner web security product. The research indicates an increase in malware serving web sites targeting end users, which typically focus on stealing online banking credentials, credit card information, personal identities and passwords to social sites.

The detection and analysis of exploits was based on AVG’s unique crowd-sourced methods for analyzing web content for malicious or dangerous intent as reported by AVG’s vast network of LinkScanner installations worldwide. AVG’s research shows that malicious code is not just an issue with outlaw servers located in countries with weak laws and lax enforcement. Monitoring active web servers serving exploits around the world indicates that 44 percent of the corrupted servers are hosted in the United States, followed by Germany and China at just 5 percent each. Many of these malware-serving websites are legitimate sites compromised by hackers to serve exploits on their behalf. In total, exploitive servers were found in nearly 4,600 locations throughout the USA.

It is important to note that this research makes no statement about who owns or is directing the efforts of these servers – for those criminals and/or criminal networks could be anywhere in the world – and they are.

“The results of this study shatter the myth that malicious code is primarily hosted in countries where e-crime laws are less developed,” said Karel Obluk, Chief Technology Officer, AVG Technologies. “Our research shows that malicious content is much more likely to show up on web servers in the U.S. than one in Asia or Eastern Europe. This makes perfect sense since the USA is a primary target market for the criminals and has rich and mature Internet infrastructure making the threats both highly accessible and cheap to host. What is most striking is the clear rise in the number of malicious servers in the last six months. Today’s hacking techniques are highly evasive so the average user cannot tell if a website is serving malware or not. A web security product is needed.”

Obluk continued, “Even more important to note is that, on average during this six month period, about 50 percent of the domains hosted on these servers were online and hosting threats only one day or less. This transient nature makes them very hard to find and add to traditional reputation-based protection systems in time to be helpful to users.”

As a preventive measure, users should look for web security protection when going online. AVG’s LinkScanner, included in all of AVG’s products, is a highly effective product to protect users from today’s malware in real-time. AVG LinkScanner is available for a FREE download at: www.linkscanner.avg.com

Keep in touch with AVG

* For breaking news, follow AVG on Twitter at www.twitter.com/officialAVGnews
* For security trends analysis, follow AVG blogs at https://www.avg.com/en/signal
* Join our Facebook community at www.facebook.com/AVGfree

About AVG Technologies

www.avg.com

AVG is a global security software maker protecting more than 110 million consumers and small businesses in 167 countries from the ever-growing incidence of web threats, viruses, spam, cyber-scams and hackers on the Internet. AVG has nearly two decades of experience in combating cyber crime and one of the most advanced laboratories for detecting, pre-empting and combating Web-borne threats from around the world. Its free, downloadable software allows novice users to have basic anti-virus protection and then easily upgrade to greater levels of safety and defense when they are ready. AVG has nearly 6,000 resellers, partners and distributors globally including Amazon.com, CNET, Cisco, Ingram Micro, Play.com, Wal-Mart, and Yahoo!

February 24, 2010: AMS Software announces the release of a new version of Home Photo Studio, a convenient program for creative photo enhancement. Besides ample opportunities for photo editing, creating original greeting cards and decorating ordinary pictures with the help of numerous frames, tools, masks, filters and effects (such as 3D and plastic effects), Home Photo Studio 2.15 now supports unique HDR-like (High Dynamic Range) effect, which makes digital images really vivid and impressive.

Home Photo Studio was originally developed for uncomplicated photo editing, and, though new advanced features are constantly added, the program always remains easy-to-use and convenient. As for its effects and filters, they are easy to apply and produce the result instantly, changing a common picture beyond recognition and making it special.

Among the recently added features there is one-picture High Dynamic Range effect, a remarkable feature for producing an HDR-like image from a single photo. Usually an HDR image requires two pictures of the same object or landscape with different luminance; and creation of such an image involves time, skill and professional photo editing software.

Home Photo Studio is used by most users for creating original greeting cards, as the number of templates, frames and clipart images is quite extraordinary. Besides, effects and filters give free play to imagination and ensure creative photo enhancement: the user can add natural phenomena (such as stars, clouds, rain, snow and lightning), noise and blur, stylize a picture (ancient photo effect, pencil drawing, lithograph, etc.), adjust brightness and saturation and make complex combinations. The transparence of the effects can be adjusted, as well as the area to be processed (the top, the bottom, the center, the borders, etc.).

By the way, the Deluxe edition of Home Photo Studio is rich with extra advanced features: creation of 3D compositions, automatic creation of collages, plastic effects and import of PNG / Photoshop™ templates.

Features:

– Support of more than 20 graphics formats;
– pseudo-HDR effect;
– Convenient image cropping;
– Hundreds of filters, effects and masks;
– Fast photo enhancement and retouch;
– Creation of slideshows with smooth transition effects;
– Greeting card templates and picture frames;
– Automatic creation of collages and 3D compositions;
– Auto enhancement and red eye removal;
– Multi-language support: English, French, Italian, Spanish.

Pricing and Availability

A single-user license of Home Photo Studio runs under Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7. Standard edition costs 39.00 USD, Deluxe edition costs 59.00 USD. Further information on the product, as well as its free trial version, is available at https://home-photo-studio.com/

About AMS Software

Founded in 2003, AMS Software specializes in photo enhancement software. Among its major products are Frame Maker Pro, Photo Effects Studio, Media Show Pro, Beauty Studio and Auto Collage Studio. The products by AMS Software have got various awards from the Internet’s most respectable software download sites. For more information, please visit the company’s website at https://ams-photo-software.com/