Security News

Two computer discs holding the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing.

The problem of identity theft has been highlighted by a case involving AXA-owned financial planning firm, NMMT, which inadvertently transferred $700,000 from a client's superannuation account to fraudsters in the Republic of Congo.

COMPUTER hackers have cracked the defences of dozens of top government and business sector internet sites this year, raising concerns about the safety of consumers' financial and personal information.

Telstra has failed to gain access to confidential documents about the controversial granting to the Optus-Elders (Opel) consortium of a $958 million contract to provide broadband services to the bush.

HOUSEHOLDERS should put locks on their mailboxes, shred bank statements and avoid throwing financial documents in the bin as precautions against identity theft.

The nation's most powerful crime fighting body, the Australian Crime Commission, will build its own electronic surveillance and interception system, a move that has set the controversial agency further part from the Australian Federal Police.

With seemingly no end to the espionage saga, it now emerges that F1's governing body earlier this week contributed to the widespread distribution of dozens more McLaren and Ferrari secrets.

Formula One leaders McLaren have been kicked out of the 2007 constructors' title race and fined $US100 million ($119 million) in spying controversy involving Ferrari information.

CYBER criminals will try to exploit the Federal Government's proposed health and welfare access card, interfere with e-passports and engage in "industrial espionage", a federal study predicts.

Australian Federal Police agent Nigel Phair is one of Australia's most experienced online crime fighters. In this edited excerpt from his new book CyberCrime: the Reality of the Threat, he profiles the modern cyber criminal.