Medical fraud is a huge issue in the U.S. Depending on whose numbers you use, fraud stemming from false medical claims and reimbursements range from $65 billion a year (a figure generated by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Studies) to more than ten times that: $750 billion a year (according to the Institute for Medicine). To stem the losses, government and law enforcement have been cracking down on fraud. In October, for example, the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced charges against 91 individuals believed to be behind a huge, interstate Medicare fraud scheme responsible for some $430 million in false billing charges. Increasingly, though, the U.S. government is turning to technology to help it identify and root out fraud within the system for medical reimbursements. Chief among the ideas under consideration is a beefed up system for identifying health consumers […]
Consumer
Chrome 0Day A No-Show At Security Con
A planned talk that was to unveil a new and previously unknown (or “zero day”) vulnerability in Google’s Chrome web browser was cancelled on Saturday after the researcher, Ucha Gobejishvili, backed out, citing difficulties obtaining a visa to travel to New Dehli, India, where the Malcon hacking conference was held. The organizer of Malcon, Rajshekhar Murthy, confirmed in an email to Security Ledger that Gobejishvili cancelled his talk at the last minute. “(Ucha) did not come at (sp) the conference due to visa issues in the last minute,” Rajshekhar Murthy wrote in an e-mail to Security Ledger on Monday. “The issue stated was he was called in last minute (sp) by the military for compulsory service which conflicted with our event dates.” Gobejishvili did not respond to e-mail and instant message requests for comment. In a conversation with Security Ledger last week, he said he would use his talk at […]
Profile Poisoning the Next Frontier for Hackers
Google and Facebook already know everything about you – your interests, friends, tastes and even your movements. That’s already a privacy nightmare, but researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Information Security Center (GTISC) think it could soon be a security nightmare, also. Automated information systems already determine what version of the news most of us see. But researchers at Georgia Tech warn that the power of such systems to shape what each of us see online could soon become a powerful tool in the hands of sophisticated attackers, who might look for ways to manipulate victims’ online profile to steer them to certain sites, according to the report “Emerging Cyber Threats Reports 2013.” Researchers at Georgia Tech said attacks that manipulate a victim’s search history, part of their online profile, using cross-site request forgery are already technically feasible. In practice, they would allow for a kind of super-search engine […]
Microsoft: Freeware, Pirate Software Supply Chain Leads to Infections
The Internet is a dangerous place, in general. And, depending on what you’re looking for online, it might be very dangerous, indeed, according to Microsoft. Writing in the company’s latest Security Intelligence Report, Microsoft said that its Malware Protection Center (MMPC) has observed an increase in malicious code infections that emanate from what it calls the “unsecure supply chain” – the informal network of legitimate and underground web sites that distribute freeware and pirated software. Freeware that promises to generate registration keys for popular products like Adobe’s Photoshop, Microsoft Windows and games such as Call of Duty were among the most commonly associated with malicious programs, Microsoft said. Internet users hoping to unlock pirated software download the key generators believing that they will produce a valid registration key, but often end up infecting their system in the process. But malware authors and cyber criminal groups will also wrap their creations in with […]
