Tag Archive for: Houston

Cyber-attack results in more than $800K stolen from Houston business, lawsuit filed


A lawsuit has been filed after online hackers used fake business emails to steal more than $800,000 from a Houston company. 

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of Texas, authorities seized a total of $834,157 held in a Houston bank account. 

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Online hackers reportedly controlled the account despite it looking like a legitimate company. In reality, officials said the unidentified hackers got access to an employee’s computer and accessed their company’s computer networks including email servers as well as accounts. 

Through these phishing attacks, they were able to create fake email addresses but identified employees responsible for financial obligations and posed as vendors who were owed money. 

That’s how, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the employees were “tricked” into wiring funds to an account, that the hackers controlled. 

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This type of attack is described by investigators as a Business Email Compromise (BEC) scheme, which targets businesses involved in wire transfer payments. 

“The fraud is carried out by compromising and/or ‘spoofing’ legitimate business email accounts through social engineering or computer intrusion techniques,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. “It causes employees of the victim company (or other individuals involved in legitimate business transactions with them) to transfer funds to accounts the scammers control.”

MORE CRIME AND PUBLIC SAFETY

The Secret Service conducted the investigation but is being handled by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. 

Officials also shared some helpful tips to avoid being a victim of a BEC scheme which include: 

  • Independently obtain mortgage payoff statements and confirm with verified and trusted sources.
  • Independently verify the authenticity of information included in correspondence and statements.
  • Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all email accounts.
  • Routinely change…

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Houston expert shares tips for navigating cybersecurity challenges amid the holiday season


It’s a grinch’s cyber-playground, and this holiday season, you’re at risk — even if you think it won’t happen to you.

The good news is you can protect yourself from scams and fraud. Just remember that cybercriminals don’t discriminate, they can prey on anyone.

These statistics may surprise you:

  • Anxiety about having a mobile device hacked differs by demographic; low-income Black women rank mobile security as their number one concern, while the general population ranks mobile security as their third largest concern, according to a recent Recon Analytics survey of more than 3,297 U.S. consumers.
  • 44 percent of millennials have been victims of online crime in the last year and 31 percent admit they share their passwords with others.
  • Romance scams resulted in the most financial losses for adults aged 60 and over
  • Younger consumers took fewest actions after being notified of a data breach affecting their identity/online accounts in Q1 2022
  • Nearly 50 percent of American gamers have experienced a cyberattack on their gaming account or device
  • 47 percent of women who live in cities say their identities and/or data has been compromised in the past 6 months due to lack of home internet protections, compared with 53 percent of city men who say the same thing, according to a recent Recon Analytics survey.

People everywhere, regardless of gender, race, income level, education, or age, deserve to feel safe online. And yet, many aren’t aware how to protect themselves, don’t make it a priority, or wait to act until they are alerted to suspicious activity.

With words like malware, phishing, spoofing, and encryption, learning to protect yourself can feel like a college-level course. But it doesn’t have to be that complicated.

Top 5 ways to guard against cyberthreats

By following five simple steps, you can start to protect your network, devices and data from many digital threats.

  1. Understand cyberattacks are real. One of the first hacks was documented in 1963 and today, nearly 60 years later, hackers are attacking phones and computers every 39 seconds. Cyberattacks continue to grow in number every year.
  2. Be proactive. Don’t wait for an attack to happen. Monitor your accounts daily so you are…

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Houston unknowingly hosted mail-order bride, casino posts on city website


The page on Wednesday morning featured a spate of blog entries on a variety of confounding topics that were decidedly unrelated to City Hall. They were taken down by the afternoon, after the Houston Chronicle inquired about them.

The source of the blog entries, many of which were nonsensical, was unknown Wednesday. Mary Benton, the city’s communications director, said she alerted the information technology department to the posts. The listed author on the articles, a housing department employee named Ashley Lawson, did not actually write and post them, Benton said.

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The entries appeared on the city’s news site, cityofhouston.news, a WordPress blog that does not share a domain with the city’s primary website, houstontx.gov.

Christopher Mitchell, the city’s chief information security officer, said no city information was compromised. 

“We were recently made aware of improper posts appearing on a blog site utilized by the city to allow individual departments to post departmental content,” Mitchell said in a statement. “The blog site is hosted on a third-party platform and is not connected to any City of Houston enterprise systems. At no point did the city experience a compromise of city systems, data, or information. The origin of the posts was from an active account that was no longer in use, and the city is taking all necessary precautions to correct the issue and prevent a recurrence.”

The posts, often in broken or garbled English, had appeared at least 29 times since Sept. 13, displayed as “uncategorized” entries among more routine posts about police and fire investigations and where to get a flu shot.

RELATED NEWS: Once again, Houston is cutting its tax rate — but that doesn’t mean your bill will go down

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Multifamily investors add to Houston portfolios


A partnership consisting of Houston-based Better World Holdings and New York-based Crown Capital Ventures has acquired Serenity at Cityside, a 362-unit apartment complex at 6061 Beverly Hill St. The property, to be renamed Aura Galleria, will undergo a $6-million modernization that will include interior renovations and community amenities. Constructed in 1968, the development consists of a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom floorplans within 32 two-story buildings. The seller was CPEP Beverly Palms, LLC. Last November, the partnership acquired the 449-unit Skylar Pointe Apartments in the Clear Lake neighborhood.

A joint venture of RPM Living Investments and DRA Advisors acquired the 372-unit San Paloma apartments at 1255 Eldridge Parkway in the Energy Corridor. The seller was Blackstone/Livcor. It is Austin-based RPM’s second joint venture with New York-based DRA and 16th acquisition in the Houston area.

Lone Star Capital, an investment firm based in New York, acquired Timberwalk, a 300-unit apartment complex at 5635 Timber Creek Place, just west of Texas 6 in northwest Houston. Chris Young, Joey Rippel, Kyle Whitney, Jeffrey Skipworth, Chris Curry and Todd Marix of Berkadia Houston represented the seller, Dallas-based Performance Properties. Johnny King of Berkadia Houston arranged financing. The property was built in 1983 and has units from 501 to 1,088 square feet.

A partnership between Tranquility Capital, Abundance Equity Partners and Rubio Investors acquired Bridgewater Apartments, a 206-unit apartment complex at 1100 Graham Drive in Tomball. Joey Rippel, Chris Young, Kyle Whitney, Jeffrey Skipworth, Chris Curry and Todd Marix of Berkadia Houston represented the seller, Houston-based Sentinel Capital. Cutt Ableson of Berkadia Houston arranged financing. The property was built in two phases in 1979 and 1982 and has units from 670 square feet to 944 square feet.

Brixton Capital, a real estate investment firm based in Solano Beach, Calif., purchased Regatta Bay,…

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