The latest cyber scam that nobody’s talking about

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Last week, a hacker gained access to large swaths of Uber’s internal systems, followed by a hacker leaking early footage from the upcoming Grand Theft Auto VI video game.

But while the two hacks above made headlines, there’s another cyber scam that’s gaining traction, and wreaking havoc on the lives of people and businesses across the country.?

Thanks to a thriving underground market for secondhand Amazon seller accounts, fraudsters are stealing people's identities and appropriating their addresses to run shady businesses for as little as a few hundred bucks, my former colleagues at Business Insider reported this week.

Fraud and identity theft is nothing new, of course. But it is getting more prevalent on social media and shopping sites, where it’s relatively easy for cybercriminals to discover a person’s name, date of birth, phone number, hometown and other sensitive information.?

The FTC received 2.8 million fraud reports and nearly 1.4 million reports of identity theft in 2021. The most commonly reported fraud category was imposter scams, followed by online shopping scams.

亚马逊 , on its part, said that it spent more than $900 million and employed more than 12,000 people last year to fight "counterfeit, fraud, and other forms of abuse.” But senior cybersecurity professionals remain divided on whom the onus lies on – companies, individuals, or agencies like the FTC to ramp up their oversight of companies.

Some experts say Amazon and other marketplaces like Facebook Marketplace have powerful incentives to overlook how bad actors evade its security checks.

“Third party sellers are a huge part of these platforms’ revenue generation,” wrote Joshua Copeland , cybersecurity director at AT&T, in a post on LinkedIn. “Most promise cracking down on fraud on their platforms, but ultimately they also don't want to cut off that large stream. It will likely take federal intervention to really see large change.”

For others like Erik Boemanns , VP of technology at IT consulting firm Improving, identity fraud will persist until a common benchmark to validate identity on a personal level is created – similar to TLS/SSL certifications that exist at the organization level.

But for many, cybersecurity is a collective responsibility.

“Cybersecurity is a shared responsibility between all players in the cyber space to protect data,” cybersecurity author and researcher Dr Magda Chelly wrote on LinkedIn. “Everyone is responsible.”

See what other professionals are saying and join the conversation here.

Cybersecurity was also a dominant theme in the conversation between former Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker and Kenneth I. Chenault , founder of VC firm General Catalyst at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York City this week.

While discussing the outlook for 2023, Pritzker said that the pandemic hasn’t just ushered in a new era of remote work, but also how companies employ technology as they adapt to this new reality.?

“We learned that hybrid (can) work, and that technology is essential – but that it’s not a panacea and it’s got real issues,” Pritzker said. “Hybrid (work) doesn’t foster technical collaboration, it fosters tactical execution.”

As a result, companies must reconfigure how they use technology moving forward, she said, and the ones that succeed will be the ones that prioritize areas including AI, cybersecurity, robotics, and the cloud.

“Companies need greater support for cybersecurity and cyber integrity, because their workforce is basically connected through devices – and they're vulnerable,” she said.

TechTok

Catch up on the tech headlines you may have missed last week and what people are saying about them, and join valuable member conversations on LinkedIn.

• Getty Images , the renowned supplier of stock images and video, has banned the sale and uploading of photos or illustrations generated by AI tools. The move follows similar bans from a cluster of sites as fears have grown about the legal status of AI images.?
• Kitty Hawk , the flying car company backed by 谷歌 billionaire co-founder Larry Page, is shutting down. The company hoped to bring electric air taxis that take off and land vertically to the mass market, but the challenge proved harder than expected.
• It’s not just manufacturing, robots are also replacing humans at frying stations. A model named Flippy is already “manning” the oil vats at some White Castle and Jack in the Box locations, and its siblings Sippy and Chippy are soon headed to Panera and Chipotle.
• Salesforce brought back its mega conference Dreamforce to San Francisco after a two-year hiatus this week, and the company hasn't missed a beat. The SaaS giant announced Genie, a real-time customer data platform that unifies its data in one place and helps clients assemble first-party data faster.?
• Meta and Google are looking to cut costs, which could include job reductions but not layoffs. Both tech giants have recently reorganized some teams and departments, offering affected employees the opportunity to apply for other roles within the companies instead of dismissing them outright.

Movers & Shakers

Here’s keeping tabs on key executives on the move and other big pivots in the tech industry. Please send me personnel moves within emerging tech.

• Last week, the Senate confirmed Nathaniel Fick as the country's first ambassador at large for cyberspace and digital policy. He will lead the State Department's work on cyberspace and digital technology diplomacy.
• In more public service personnel news, Laura Edelson , a postdoctoral researcher with Cybersecurity for Democracy at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering, has joined the Department of Justice's antitrust division as chief technologist.
• Foursquare has hired Scott McCormick , formerly of HackerOne and Reciprocity, as its new chief information security officer.
• Cybersecurity company Cobalt has hired former 1010data CRO and IBM executive Jeri Allan as its chief sales officer.?
• Technology consulting firm Slalom has hired former Twilio chief information officer Michelle Grover as its first chief technology officer.
• Ben Lerer has joined VC firm Lerer Hippeau full-time, while Graham Brown has been promoted to managing partner.
• Craft Ventures promoted Arra Malekzadeh , who joined the firm in 2019 from BuildZoom, to partner.

This Week in Tech

A weekly advent calendar of tech history from the archives.

This week, the humble emoticon, the precursor to the emoji, turned 40! :-)

ICYMI

Here are other top stories of the week from beyond LinkedIn in the broader world of tech.

• The White House has opened up applications to state governments to stake a claim to a $1 billion cybersecurity grant program. The four-year grant program was created in last fall's $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, and aims to be a kickstarter of state and local governments’ cybersecurity strategies.?
• The stock market downturn this year has caused the longest drought in technology public listings ever, exceeding the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the dotcom crash.
• The U.S. military and FBI bought access to a massive trove of Americans' private internet data, including browsing data, email data, cookies, and more. The data comes from the “Augury” platform, sold by a private company called Team Cymru.
• The FTC is not budging on getting Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy to testify in its investigation into whether the retail giant deceived customers into signing up for its Prime service or not.
• Elon Musk said SpaceX will request exemptions from Iranian sanctions to provide internet services through its Starlink product. The move comes on the heels of anti-government protests after a woman died in police custody.

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