Thought I’d offer a brief history of the financial crisis as seen through Google Insights, which measures the popularity of a search term over time. Interest in the word subprime spiked a couple of times in 2007 (above) before we figured out it was all about toxic debts (below): and credit crunches: Then we realised… Read More »
Next mealtime, expect your kids to pester you to take out a loan on a new Scion. They’ll probably have filled in the forms for you. A month ago the NYT wrote about how a kids’ virtual world website, Whyville, was cutting a deal with Toyota to promote the Scion, allowing the youngsters to buy… Read More »
I continue to be intrigued, but somewhat perplexed, by the CardSystems security breach that happened nearly two months ago now. Who knew it first, and who told who, and when? And why did it take so long to tell the rest of us? A U.S. company claimed it was its software that first spotted the… Read More »
If you think the Internet is a scary place for stealing your sensitive bank data, try your local gas station. The Star Tribune in Malaysia reports that criminals there are increasingly intercepting the transmission of credit card data between the point of sale machines that swipe your card and the bank. This data, incredibly, is… Read More »
There’s more spam-trojan-banking scams around: these are emails that look like legit communications from your bank manager. Australia is the probably source of a new one discovered in the last 24 hours, according to MessageLabs, which at least looks plausible because it says your credit application has been rejected. (I know the feeling.) If… Read More »