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In exchange for his deceptions, the Russians paid Hanssen $1.4 million – $600,000 in cash and diamonds, and another $800,000 placed in a bank account.

From Robert Hanssen: The fake job that snared FBI agent who spied for Moscow – BBC News:

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According to a new report from Cornerstone Advisors, The Rise of Family Digital Wallets, community-based financial institutions should set their sights on offering a specialized digital wallet focused on helping consumers manage the finances of their Gen Z (born 1995-2009) and Gen Alpha (born after 2009) children.

From Family Digital Wallets: Deposit Acquisition Opportunity For Banks:

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Luke Gebb, executive vice president of American Express Digital Labs

As for whether AmEx would seek to develop its own homemade LLM using its financial services data, following in the footsteps of the financial information and media giant Bloomberg launching its BloombergGPT with 50 million parameters a month ago, Gebb was dubious.

“Our hypothesis at the moment is that we would be better suited using LLMs through partnerships,” Gebb said, but added he did not have any specific ones to announce. “I don’t see us spinning up our own LLM from scratch.”

From AmEx is experimenting cautiously with generative AI for fintech | VentureBeat:

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Nearly half, 46%, of organizations hit by ransomware during the past year paid a ransom to recover data, according to research Sophos released Wednesday.

Averages and figures attributed to ransomware payments vary between research firms and studies.

Sophos’ survey of 3,000 IT and cybersecurity leaders across 14 countries pinned the median ransom payment at $400,000 during the past year.

Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 observed a median ransom payment of $350,000 in a ransomware report it released in March. A study BakerHostetler released earlier this month pinned the average ransom payment at $600,000, a 15% increase from the previous year.

From Flood of ransom payments continues as officials mull ban | Cybersecurity Dive.

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Of course, online payments are useful for a lot of things. So why were these guys just working in porn? They tried to work with other companies, actually, but only the pornographers were really focused on revenue. “We’d go to these companies, and they’d say they were just focused on getting bigger. Everyone was doing huge IPOs with zero sales, so it didn’t matter to them.”

From How Pornographers Invented E-Commerce.

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n terms of the total value of card payments made within the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), card fraud constituted only 0.028%, amounting to €1.53 billion out of a total value of €5.40 trillion. This represents a significant decrease compared to the previous year, as card fraud in 2019 accounted for €1.87 billion from a total value of €5.16 trillion. The highest level of card fraud observed thus far was recorded in 2008 at 0.048% of the total value.

From Card fraud in Europe declines significantly.

xxxhe first type is card-not-present fraud, which involves fraudulent transactions conducted remotely, such as online and telephone payments, using stolen card details obtained through techniques like phishing. This category accounted for approximately 84% of the total value of card fraud in 2021,

 

Although cross-border transactions represented only 11% of the total value of card payment transactions, they accounted for 63% of the total value of card fraud in 2021.

 

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The IRS identified nearly 1.1 million tax returns as potentially fraudulent as of March 2, according to a Treasury report issued to the public Tuesday that analyzed data partway through the filing season. The associated refunds were worth about $6.3 billion.

From IRS flagged more than 1 million tax returns for identity fraud in 2023.

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The IRS had confirmed 12,617 of the tax returns were fraudulent as of the same date in March, Treasury reported. That figure is up from 9,626 tax returns at the same time in 2022.

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A particularly bad example is from late last year, when reggaeton superstar Bad Bunny performed to a partially empty stadium in Mexico City, while thousands of ticket holders crowded outside, unable to get in. An official investigation concluded that the problem had been the enormous amount of “cloned” tickets — convincing copies of real tickets with working barcodes. People with a genuine ticket would have been unable to enter the venue if they turned up after its cloned version had already been scanned.

From Luis Miguel fans struggled to get tickets even without Ticketmaster – Rest of World.

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Since acquiring that first customer, Logikcull has seen a steady stream of new clients coming to it via the chat program, which OpenAI operates. “We’re seeing it as a channel that’s going to drive $100,000 in subscription revenue a month at the rate that it’s going today,” said Wilson. “It’s a brave new world.” In the last 60 days, Wilson estimates, 5% of Logikcull’s sales leads have come via answers provided by ChatGPT.

From How to Grease a Chatbot: E-Commerce Companies Seek a Backdoor Into AI Responses — The Information:

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Finally, as a place holder in an important new category of technology, an Apple headset would be a statement of intent, rather than an end in itself. However impressive the technology behind the device, it will still suffer from the problem common to all VR and AR headsets: most people do not want to don a bulky headset or to cut themselves off from the world to enter a different digital realm.

Until the same experiences can be worked into lightweight glasses — or even, one day, contact lenses that make the technology completely invisible — VR and AR are unlikely to infiltrate everyday life in the way that smartphones did. But if Apple finally launches its headset next week, it will have taken the all-important first step.

From Apple’s mixed reality headset is a hedge against disruption | Financial Times:

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