The bogus websites included channel8health.com, dailyhealth6.com, which featured stories such as “Acai Berry Diet Exposed: Miracle Diet or Scam?” and “1 Trick of a Tiny Belly: Reporter Loses Her ‘Belly’ Using 1 Easy Tip,” and often displayed the logos of major news sources, such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, according to the FTC complaint.
The FTC will send over 23,000 checks totalling more than $3.7 million to consumers who were affected.
New eye-opening cyber-security stats
AT&T is sharing the alarming results of its own cyber-security insight report in hopes of helping other businesses protect their data.
Over the past two years, AT&T reports a 62 percent increase in the number of cyber attacks that disrupted company operations, and a 458 percent increase in the number of times hackers searched the Internet of Things connections for vulnerabilities, according to the report.
“Every company either has been breached or will be breached,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobile and Business Solutions, in a release.
The AT&T report stated the biggest cyber threats businesses face are corporate espionage, Nation States, organized cyber-crime, hacktivists, and malicious insiders.
Not ready for EMV chip cards
Oct. 1 was the deadline for the new EMV chip and credit cards, but many businesses and customers are not ready to use the new cards at the checkout.
A majority of people have not received their new chip cards, and a majority of businesses have not purchased new card readers, according to Natalie Dunlevey with Dayton-based National Processing Solutions.
I did receive my new credit card in time for the deadline, so I decided to try it out last week. I attempted to use it at Kroger and Dollar Tree locations in Lebanon, and despite having the new card readers, neither store could process the transaction using the new chip.
So, instead of inserting my new card into the reader, I swiped it the old way, instead.
The new EMV chip is expected to be more secure than the swipe-able magnetic stripe, because it creates an unique token for each transaction.
Merchants who did not meet Thursday’s deadline could be held liable for data breaches or fraudulent transactions.
Rachel Murray is a WHIO-TV consumer reporter. You can watch her reports each day on Newscenter 7. Follow her on Twitter @RMurrayWHIO or like her fan page on Facebook.
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