Tag Archives: Financials Industry

Comcast says 230,000 customers affected by debt collection data breach

Posted on by

Comcast is warning that hackers stole the personal data of more than 230,000 customers during a ransomware attack on a third-party debt collector, according to a court filing. The bad actors targeted a Pennsylvania-based debt collection agency called Financial Business and Consumer Solutions (FBCS.)

The attack occurred back in February, but Comcast claims that FBCS initially said that the incident didn’t involve any customer data. FBCS changed its tune by July, when it notified Comcast that customer information had been compromised, according to reporting by TechCrunch.

All told, 237,703 subscribers were impacted by the breach. The attackers were thorough, scooping up names, addresses, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, Comcast account numbers and ID numbers. Comcast says the stolen data belongs to customers who signed up with the company “around 2021.” It also says it has stopped using FBCS for the purposes of debt collection.

“From February 14 and February 26, 2024, an unauthorized party gained access to FBCS’s computer network and some of its computers,” the filing states. “During this time, the unauthorized party downloaded data from FBCS systems and encrypted some systems as part of a ransomware attack.”

No group has stepped forward to claim credit for the incident. FBCS has only referred to the attacker as an “unauthorized actor.” The debt collection agency was hit hard by this attack, with Comcast customers being just one group of victims. The company says more than four million people were impacted and that the cybercriminals accessed medical claims and health insurance information, in addition to standard identification data. 

To that end, medical debt-purchasing company CF Medical confirmed that 600,000 of its customers were involved in the breach. Truist Bank also confirmed it was affected by the attack.

It’s notable that this incident primarily impacts debtors, opening them up to potential scams. Chris Hauk, consumer privacy advocate at Pixel Privacy, told Engadget that “the bad actors that get their paws on this information may use it to pose as debt relief agencies, which many turn to as a way out of their situation, meaning many of the involved debtors may be defrauded out of large sums of money, something they can ill-afford.”

In other words, keep an eye out for suspicious phone calls, emails and texts. This is good advice for anyone, and not just debtors who had data stored with FBCS. After all, it was revealed that hackers stole more than 2.7 billion records from American consumers earlier this year, which likely includes data on everyone who lives in the country.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/comcast-says-230000-customers-affected-by-debt-collection-data-breach-184554728.html?src=rss

Fisker is the latest EV startup to declare bankruptcy

Posted on by

Another EV manufacturer bites the dust with Fisker officially declaring bankruptcy. The US-based startup filed for Chapter 11 protections late Monday, June 17, with plans to restructure its debt and sell its assets. Unfortunately, this means the Alaska EV with a designated cowboy hat space will likely never come to fruition. 

"We are proud of our achievements, and we have put thousands of Fisker Ocean SUVs in customers' hands," a Fisker spokesperson stated. "But like other companies in the electric vehicle industry, we have faced various market and macroeconomic headwinds that have impacted our ability to operate efficiently."

The news is not exactly surprising, as Fisker had already halted investments in future models, like the Alaska EV. That decision came alongside concerning figures in Fisker's February release of its preliminary Q4 and 2023 earnings. Among them was its plan to lay off 15 percent of its employees — about 200 people — as it attempted a switch to a Dealer Partner model. The startup had claimed it was in talks with "a large automaker" for an influx of cash and production support.

Fisker also revealed in the report that it had produced 10,193 units of its sole EV available, the Ocean SUV, in 2023 but only delivered 4,929 vehicles. Plus, there was the fact that, despite Fisker's fourth-quarter revenue increasing to $200.1 million from the previous quarter's $128.3 million, the company still had a gross margin of negative 35 percent. 

The decision to file for Chapter 11 protections adds Fisker to the ranks of other EV startups, such as Volta Trucks and Lordstown Motors. The two companies filed for bankruptcy last year in Sweden and the United States, respectively. 

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fisker-is-the-latest-ev-startup-to-declare-bankruptcy-123056157.html?src=rss

FTX plans to refund defrauded customers with interest

Posted on by

FTX has filed a plan with a bankruptcy court to pay back creditors who held cryptocurrency at the embattled exchange. The vast majority of customers are set to get their money back with interest, though they (and the debtors) missed out on major gains in the crypto market since FTX’s dramatic collapse in November 2022 — the price of Bitcoin has more than tripled since then.

FTX aims to fully pay back non-governmental creditors based on the value of their claims as determined by the bankruptcy court. That means 98 percent of creditors (those who have up to $50,000 in claims) will get 118 percent of the amount of their allowed claims. Other creditors will get their money back, plus what FTX describes as billions of dollars in compensation “for the time value of their investments.”

Government creditors are in line for payouts with a nine percent interest rate. The Internal Revenue Service and Department of Justice are among the stakeholders with which FTX has agreed settlements.

The company suggests that, if its plan of reorganization is rubber stamped, it would be able to resolve disputes with private and government stakeholders “without costly and protracted litigation.” All told, FTX says that it will be able to distribute between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion in cash.

But, you may be wondering, where exactly is all this money coming from? After all, when FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection 17 months ago, it held just 0.1 percent of the Bitcoin and 1.2 percent of the Ethereum that its customers thought it had.

FTX said it was able to monetize “an extraordinarily diverse collection of assets, most of which were proprietary investments held by the Alamedaor FTX Ventures businesses, or litigation claims.” As TechCrunch reports, the assets that FTX CEO John J. Ray III and his team tracked down included around $8 billion in real estate, political donations and venture capital investments.

The company filed the updated plan of reorganization just a few weeks after co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (aka SBF) was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was found guilty in November of charges including wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ftx-plans-to-refund-defrauded-customers-with-interest-143555536.html?src=rss

Block reportedly greenlit transactions involving terrorist groups and sanctioned nations

Posted on by

Block appears to be squarely in the government’s sights. Prosecutors from the Southern District of New York are reportedly probing extensive compliance lapses at the parent company of Square and Cash App. NBC News says a former Block employee has handed over documents to federal authorities, painting a picture of how the company failed to gather required risk-assessment information from customers and subsequently processed illegal transactions.

The documents allegedly show that Block greenlit multiple crypto transactions involving known terrorist organizations. Furthermore, Square reportedly processed thousands of transfers involving nations under economic sanctions. “From the ground up, everything in the compliance section was flawed,” the whistleblower allegedly told NBC News. “It is led by people who should not be in charge of a regulated compliance program.”

Most transactions allegedly involved credit cards, dollar transfers or Bitcoin and weren’t reported to the government as mandated by law. In addition, Block reportedly refused to “correct company processes” when notified of the breaches.

The investigation follows a separate report from NBC News in February highlighting two different whistleblowers who flagged the same issues at Block. They cited “questionable Cash App transactions with entities under sanction by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, operations known to sell personal information and credit card data for illegal purposes, and offshore gambling sites barred to U.S. citizens.”

The practice allegedly spanned multiple years. NBC News says it reviewed around 100 pages of documents from the whistleblower involving people or organizations in countries under US sanctions, including Russia, Iran, Venezuela and Cuba. Some of them were reportedly from as recent as 2023.

Graphic from finance company Block showing Jack Dorsey's face on a cube.
Block

The whistleblower claims Block’s management was aware of the alleged offenses. “It’s my understanding from the documents that compliance lapses were known to Block leadership and the board in recent years,” Edward Siedle, a former SEC attorney representing the whistleblower, told NBC News.

The whistleblower says that, besides senior management, Block’s board was told about the compliance issues. Coincidentally or not, several board members made unexpected exits recently, including former US treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, who resigned in February, and Sharon Rothstein, who had been on the board since 2022. Block told NBC News that they were leaving to devote more time to other activities and that their exits weren’t “a result of any disagreements with the company on any matter relating to the company’s operations, policies or practices.”

Federal authorities have taken a greater interest in modern financial platforms in recent years after at least some of them had become something of a Wild West. Of course, FTX’s fraudulent practices and subsequent collapse led to a seismic decline in the cryptocurrency industry. Although it isn’t clear if the feds have gotten involved, Elon Musk’s X (the husk of what was once Dorsey’s Twitter) reportedly violated US sanctions by accepting blue-check subscription payments from terrorist organizations.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/block-reportedly-greenlit-transactions-involving-terrorist-groups-and-sanctioned-nations-181222712.html?src=rss

SEC approves bitcoin ETFs (for real this time)

Posted on by

The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved the applications of 11 spot bitcoin ETFs in a highly anticipated decision that will make it much easier for people to dabble in cryptocurrency investing without directly buying and holding bitcoin. The approval comes one day after a hacker temporarily took over the SEC’s X account and posted a rogue tweet saying that bitcoin ETFs had been approved by the regulator.

The approval is a significant milestone for crypto investors, who for years have tried to win SEC approval for the investment funds that hold bitcoin. With the approval, 11 such funds will be listed on public stock exchanges.

United States financial regulators have long been wary of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and in a statement, SEC Chair Gary Gensler wasn’t exactly effusive about the merits of bitcoin. “Bitcoin is primarily a speculative, volatile asset that’s also used for illicit activity including ransomware, money laundering, sanction evasion, and terrorist financing,” he wrote.

“While we approved the listing and trading of certain spot bitcoin ETP shares today, we did not approve or endorse bitcoin. Investors should remain cautious about the myriad risks associated with bitcoin and products whose value is tied to crypto.”

Gensler may have more reasons than usual to be circumspect. On Tuesday, one day before the SEC’s decision on bitcoin ETFs was due, the SEC’s official X account was hacked. The attackers posted a rogue tweet claiming the funds had been approved, causing a temporary spike in the price of bitcoin. The SEC has said it’s working with the FBI and Inspector General to investigate the matter.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/sec-approves-bitcoin-etfs-for-real-this-time-224125584.html?src=rss