Bank customer's lawsuit raises questions about fraud liability

The case of an Ontario man who was charged more than $80,000 on his credit card for purchases he claims he didn't make is raising new questions about the security of online and credit card transactions and whether banks are shifting liability for fraud to their customers.

Three years ago, Jason Monaco sued the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce after the bank insisted he was responsible for charging the cost of a custom-built race car to his bank-issued Visa card, a purchase Monaco says he never made.

Monaco, the founder and managing partner of a Toronto investment relations firm, alleges in his lawsuit that he discovered the charge of $81,276 "during a routine check of his Visa account balance" in June 2010.

After CIBC was alerted, the bank ultimately removed a second charge of $4,972 that Monaco also disputed. His lawsuit alleges that although both transactions bore the same fraudulent signature on the transaction receipts, CIBC is holding Monaco responsible for the car purchase because that transaction was completed using a personal identification number (PIN) in conjunction with the card's embedded chip.

Fraudulent PIN transactions 'impossible'

Monaco declined to speak about the case. Monaco and CIBC have also filed claims against the business where the fraudulent transaction took place.

In its statement of defence, CIBC argues that "it is not possible to process a chip and PIN transaction without the Visa card and the confidential PIN."

Steven Murdoch, a researcher with the computer laboratory at Britain's Cambridge University, disagrees that "chip and PIN" security is impenetrable.

"It's actually quite an old technology — between 15 and 20 years old."

Several years ago Murdoch and his colleagues demonstrated a number of flaws in the system.

One allows criminals to use a bit of hardware to fool the card into accepting any random PIN entered on a merchant's card terminal. That acceptance, and not the PIN itself, is then sent to the bank, making it appear that the correct PIN was entered.

"And sometimes as a result, customers are refused a refund," Murdoch says. "Even though they've been the victim of fraud and they have not been negligent."

Murdoch managed to shrink the hardware required to the size of a deck of cards, but he says criminals in France were able to put it on a microchip and embed it on counterfeit cards.

Caveats and conditions

But the Ontario lawsuit does more than raise questions about chip and PIN security.

A number of Canadian banks declined to answer specific questions about the lengthy agreements customers implicitly accept by using bank-issued credit and debit cards, or on-line banking services. (Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

CIBC's lawyers say the caveats in Monaco's cardholder agreement also make him responsible for the charge.

"The primary cardholder is liable for any transactions made on the Visa account" the language reads, "if any cardholder uses a PIN to make the transaction."

CIBC also points to a condition that stipulates cardholders are responsible for all charges until the bank is alerted that a card is lost or stolen.

Monaco claims his card was neither lost, stolen nor did he divulge his PIN to anyone.

Further, his lawsuit claims that CIBC's reliance on fine print and an "exclusion of liability clause is unconscionable."

CIBC declined to discuss the case.

The bank, along with ScotiaBank, National bank, Royal Bank and TD Canada Trust, also declined to answer specific questions about the lengthy agreements customers implicitly accept by using bank-issued credit and debit cards, or on-line banking services.

Interview requests to Bank of Montreal were not acknowledged.

A spokesperson for TD offered a general reply that the "spirit" of the bank's online security guarantee is to cover clients' losses in case of fraud, adding that the bank looks "at every situation case by case". 

A survey of the electronic banking agreements for the big six institutions reveals a variety of conditions imposed on clients. They include requirements such as having the latest anti-virus software on any computer used for banking, and not using a PIN, password or security question that's too easy to guess. 

CIBC's electronic access agreement also makes customers potentially liable if they use software that collects and displays financial information from different sources. One such aggregation service is a popular one offered by Mint.com.

Conditions 'quite reasonable'

Maura Drew-Lytle, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Bankers Association, says the various conditions aren't onerous.

"[The banks] are quite reasonable in my opinion," Drew-Lytle said.

"Generally, if they don't think you have knowingly contributed to the fraud, then chances are you will get reimbursed. Again, it's case by case. They have to look at that."

Last year, Canada's six largest banks reimbursed clients some $9 million for fraudulent online transactions. The most recent statistics (2012) on credit card and debit card payouts top half a billion dollars.

But the banks don't provide statistics on the value of fraud they don't cover, or the number of clients they refuse to make whole.

Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments Douglas Melville says he isn't seeing a significant number of clients complaining about caveat-laden agreements.

"I think the bank's legal departments are going to do what they need to in order to protect the interests of the banks," Melville says.

"If there's truly no evidence of clients being in some kind of compromising situation like having written down the PIN on their wallet or their card, our experience is that banks have generally been looking after their customers quite well."

Conservative MP James Rajotte, who chairs the parliamentary finance committee, said he was surprised the banks wouldn't talk about their agreements.

"I mean they're agreements that are easily obtainable, so I would think it would be entirely reasonable to expect they would be willing to discuss those publicly."

Banks offered blanket assurances

Glenn Thibeault, the NDP's consumer affairs critic, notes that a number of bank and credit card officials recently testified at finance committee hearings into mobile digital payments. He said they offered blanket assurances that clients are protected from electronic fraud losses.

"Zero-liability also has 10 asterisks beside it," Thibeault said. "Zero liability isn't actually going to be in effect if this is the way banks are doing this."

The debate about what's reasonable to expect from bank customers in the digital frontier will only become more pointed, said Larry Keating, CEO of NPC, an Ontario firm that helps professionals and organizations secure their computers.

He said efforts of cybercriminals to exploit security weaknesses can be brilliant, nasty and difficult for unsophisticated users to completely prevent.

"When the bank has requirements in those agreements," Keating says, "in my mind that hasn't been resolved as to who will be responsible for what and how. The banks can hold their ground and they're going to have an enormous public relations issue."

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University of Ottawa head to address student sex assault allegations

Allan Rock, the president of the University of Ottawa, has yet to address the two incidents of alleged misconduct involving students, but will make a statement Thursday morning. ((CBC))

University of Ottawa president Allan Rock was expected to make his first public statement Thursday about two serious allegations of sexual misconduct involving students at the school.

On Sunday, four student leaders resigned after a private Facebook chat involving sexually threatening banter about the president of the student federation was made public online.

The following day, the university suspended its men's hockey program as police investigate a complaint of sexual assault while the team was on a road trip in Thunder Bay.

Police in Thunder Bay continue to investigate the sexual assault case, but no charges have been laid.

Rock is scheduled to speak at the school's Faculty of Social Sciences building at 10 a.m. ET Thursday.

Sources tell CBC News he will announce the creation of a "working group" to address these issues.

New group brings recommendations

A new University of Ottawa student group calling themselves Let's Talk About Rape Culture sent out a news release early Thursday, saying these events are a "wake-up call to lift the veil on the all too common and often daily reality that is rape culture for women and men on our campus."

"This culture of rape, which is nothing less than the outright trivialization of all forms of sexual violence, cannot be swept under the rug and must be taken seriously by all, be they students, professors, union activists, employers, journalists, lawyers, etc.," the news release said.

Group members including students and members of the local student workers union said they had eight recommendations for the school, including creating a committee to look at rape culture policies and tools across campus, the creation of a women's help centre on campus and a day of public debate on rape culture.

Their website also includes a petition.

Anne-Marie Roy, the student union leader at the school and the target of the Facebook chat — in which one of the participants suggested she be "sexually punished" — said what happened to her is too common on campus.

"It seems like rape culture is very ingrained in the way some of these men are thinking, and it's very normalized — so much so that discussing these matters in a private conversation is OK," she said.

Former prof says athletes warned

Norm O'Reilly is a professor of sports management at Ohio University. (Courtesy Ohio University)

Norm O'Reilly, a former sports management professor at the University of Ottawa who's now at Ohio University, told Ottawa Morning host Hallie Cotnam on Thursday current student-athletes normally get education about sexual assault as part of their involvement.

"People and athletes are very aware of the role they take and the fact they're an extension of the organization or brand they're representing," he said.

"Think of how universities have dealt with things like frosh week in general …. I think these situations happen a lot less than they used to."

O'Reilly said in general, organizations that respond quickly to a crisis and show they're not in favour of the activity in question don't suffer as much of a blow to their image as ones that may delay.

He said the fact Rock is taking a few days to respond to these situations is normal.

"No one of any kind of authority or any kind of depth would respond until you have the facts and you know the situation. The last thing you want to do is make any kind of mistake."

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Crimea referendum to join Russia has 'no legal grounds,' Ukraine PM says

Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said on Thursday that a decree making Crimea part of Russia was an illegitimate move and Crimea was and will remain an integral part of the country.

"This is an illegitimate decision and this so-called referendum has no legal grounds at all. That's the reason why we urge the Russian government not to support those who support separatism in the Ukraine," Yatseniuk told a news conference in Brussels following talks with EU leaders.

"Crimea is, was and will be an integral part of Ukraine."

He also urged Russia on Thursday to withdraw its military from Crimea and said the current crisis must be resolved only through peaceful means.

The crisis in Ukraine escalated on Thursday after the parliament in Crimea, which has effectively been seized by Russian forces, voted to join Russia.

The 100-seat parliament in Crimea, which enjoys a degree of autonomy under current Ukrainian law, voted 78-0, with eight abstentions in favour of holding a referendum, and for joining Russia. Local voters will also be given the choice of deciding to remain part of Ukraine, but with enhanced local powers.

In Moscow, a prominent member of Russia's parliament, Sergei Mironov, said he has introduced a bill to simplify the procedure for Crimea to join Russia and it could be passed as soon as next week, the state news agency ITAR-Tass reported.

On Tuesday, President Vladimir Putin said Russia had no intention of annexing Crimea, while insisting its residents have the right to determine the region's status in a referendum. Putin called a meeting of his Security Council on Thursday to discuss Ukraine.

A referendum had previously been scheduled in Crimea on March 30, but the question to be put to voters was on whether their region should enjoy "state autonomy" within Ukraine.

Earlier, Crimea's new leader said pro-Russian forces numbering more than 11,000 now control all access to the peninsula in the Black Sea and have blockaded all military bases that have not yet surrendered.

The West has joined the new Ukrainian leadership in Kyiv in demanding that Russia pull its forces back from Crimea, but little progress was reported after a flurry of diplomatic activity in Paris on Wednesday involving U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Ukraine's armed forces will act if Russian military intervention escalates any further into its territory, Yatseniuk said Thursday. 

"In case of further escalation and military intervention into the Ukrainian territory by foreign forces, the Ukrainian government and Ukrainian military will act in accordance with the constitution and laws," Yatseniuk said in Brussels.

"We are ready to protect our country," he said, adding that Russia is a nuclear-armed power with a much larger military. 

Ukrainian forces have so far not responded to the Russian takeover of the Crimean peninsula. But this could change if the Russian intervention escalated, he said.

Yatseniuk, who came to Brussels to discuss the crisis with the leaders of the 28 countries of the European Union, said the talks with EU leaders were only about political and peaceful means of resolving the conflict.

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The problem with history, the Russian version: Joe Schlesinger

If what's happening in Ukraine sounds familiar it's because we've seen it all before.

It happened in the 1990s in another bitterly divided Slav society, Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslav federation was breaking up with infighting between its seven states. The most brutal use of force came from the country's dominant group, the Serbs, who resorted to "ethnic cleansing" to move their rivals out.

NATO, which had never gone to war in Europe before (or since) used its air power to oust the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic.

The Russians, Serbia's allies and patrons, fumed but did nothing because they couldn't. They had enough problems at home trying to recover from the shock of the fall of communism.

Now, the jackboot is on the other foot. It's NATO's turn to be incensed as Russia sends its troops into the Ukrainian territory of Crimea and threatens the new regime in Kyiv with further action.

U.S. President Barack Obama has issued a stern warning to Vladimir Putin to keep his hands off Ukraine. But the Russian leader isn't likely to be deterred by Obama's latest "red line" any more than Bashar al-Assad was by the one the Americans drew in the sands of Syria. 

There is an unusual twist in this crisis, however, because, as Putin put it, Ukrainians and Russians are brothers. (And there is no falling out more bitter than a family feud.)

From the Russian perspective, therefore, this problem begs to be handled as a domestic affair — not subject to interference from outsiders, be they the UN Security Council or NATO.

Russia's cradle

Today, though Russians tend to look at Ukrainians as their kid brothers, Ukraine is in fact more like Russia's cradle.

The first Russian state was based in Kyiv, and Ukraine is still often seen as Russia's cultural and spiritual homeland, the place where Eastern Orthodox Christianity took root.

But power passed on north to Moscow and St. Petersburg after Ukraine was overrun in the 13th century by Mongols from Asia. And that event still has its aftershocks. 

Members of Vienna's Ukrainian community protest against Russian troops in Ukraine on Wednesday as diplomats from Russia, the EU and the U.S. gathered in Paris to try to ease tensions. (Leonhard Foeger / Reuters)

The situation in Crimea is a perfect example. The West says it's an integral part of Ukraine, which is now in the hands of its Western-leaning opposition parties.

Moscow says it's Russian because a majority of the population is Russian. You be the judge.

For centuries, the majority of Crimea's inhabitants were Tatars, a Turkic-speaking people who arrived as part of the Mongol's "Golden Horde."

But under Soviet rule these people were devastated. By 1933, half of Crimea's Tatar population is estimated to have been starved to death, slaughtered or deported as part of the communist drive to collective agriculture.

In the wake of Second World War, then Soviet leader Joseph Stalin deported the Tatars that were left to central Asia, accusing them of collaborating with the German invaders.

There were indeed Tartars who joined the Waffen-SS, the Nazi force of foreigners from countries as diverse as France and India.

To be precise, 3,518 Tatars joined the Waffen-SS. But so did 70,000 Russians and Ukrainians.

Besides, punishing 200,000 people because of the sins of 3,518 is, to say the least, irrational.  

Nearly half of the deported Tatars died of hardships suffered in exile. They were not allowed back to Crimea until after the fall of communism and now represent a small minority fearful of being victimized again by Russians.

Florence Nightingale

But Crimea's Russians also have a justified complaint: the fact that the territory is legally part of Ukraine.

Their claim to the peninsula — aside from the fact that they represent 60 per cent of the population — is that it was conquered by the tsarist Russia in 1783.

In 1853, an alliance of Britain, France and the Turkish Ottoman Empire, fearful of Russian expansionism, attacked Crimea in a war that became famous in the West. (Think of Florence Nightingale, the pioneering nurse, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade.")

Though the Russians lost the three-year bloody conflict, they managed to hang on to the peninsula.

After the communist revolution, Both Crimea and Ukraine became "autonomous" Soviet socialist republics

Then in 1954, totally out of the blue, Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet leader of the day, issued an edict turning Crimea into a part of Ukraine.

The handover was widely considered a gift from Khrushchev who, though Russian, owed much to Ukraine. He had spent his youth and early career there, and had a Ukrainian wife.

Brotherly love

The brotherly talk, though, can change. It certainly did in the case of Yugoslavia.

A century ago, it was the dream of Balkan Slavs, who for centuries had been ruled by outsiders, to have a country of their own,

The dream led a Serb to assassinate the crown prince of Austria, one of the Slavs' overlords, in Sarajevo in June 1914, thereby unleashing the First World War.

Ukrainian police separate ethnic Russians, on the left, and Crimean Tatars during opposing rallies near the Crimean parliament building in Simferopol in February as the standoff in Ukraine was escalating. One person died in the confrontation, apparently of a heart attack. (Baz Ratner / Reuters)

In a case of supreme irony, the slaughter of that war led to the assassin's dream becoming a reality when Yugoslavia was born.

Fast forward to the 1990s, however, and the exploding resentments between the Yugoslav ethnic groups once again put Sarajevo in the crosshairs.

The Bosnian city was besieged by Serb forces for four years in what has been the longest siege in the history of modern warfare.

The decade of fighting that tore apart Yugoslavia cost 130,000 lives and displaced four million people, one in every six Yugoslavs. And the region still has not fully recovered from its ravages.

For all our sakes, we can only hope that the Russians and Ukrainians — and most importantly Vladimir Putin — may have learned something from the disaster that befell their Balkan Slav brethren before it's too late.

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The foul called on the Fair Elections Act: Chris Hall

Until now, Brad Butt laboured as a little-known Conservative MP.

That relative obscurity probably seems like the good old days now that he's been called out in the Commons for telling a fabricated story in support of his government's controversial plan to rewrite federal election laws.

Obviously, Butt's credibility is taking a hit this week over the concocted story that he'd seen, first-hand, people fishing discarded voter information cards out of the trash and using them.

But it doesn't end there.

His Conservative colleagues are also taking a hit for refusing to allow a committee to inquire further into Butt's sleight-of-memory, and for rejecting a more thorough public airing of the sweeping, 244-page bill to overhaul election rules.

The two events combined culminated in a week of filibusters, procedural wrangling and the kinds of personal attacks that give politics its reputation as a blood sport.

Here's how it all began.

Last month Butt stood in the Commons not once but twice, and described with considerable flourish that he'd seen examples of voter fraud.

"I have actually witnessed other people picking up the voter cards and going to use them to vote, '' he said.

Three weeks later the freshman MP from Mississauga, Ont., stood in the House to correct the record, following that up a day later with an apology.

Sorry, not good enough

Despite the retraction and belated apology, Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer ruled in favor of the opposition who argued Butt had deliberately misled the Commons.

But for Conservative MPs, Butt's mea culpa was good enough. After a long debate that wrapped up Wednesday, they voted to ignore the Speaker's ruling and end any further inquiry.

After twice telling Parliament he had seen voter fraud occur, Conservative MP Brad Butt then stood up to say he had misspoke. (CBC)

Government House Leader Peter Van Loan even argued that to allow a Commons committee to inquire further would discourage other MPs from correcting the record when they misspeak.

"We will create a situation where people are no longer encouraged to come to this House and correct the record, and tell the truth, for fear they will face a contempt action. Face having their name dragged through the mud for doing the right thing.''

For the opposition, however, the apology was not enough. Far from it.

They say this isn't a case of retelling a story that wasn't accurate. Or inadvertently misstating something. It's about a politician who said he'd witnessed an event that never happened.

NDP House leader Nathan Cullen insists MPs are entitled to a full explanation.

''He was aware of what he was doing at the time. And he was doing it for the most cynical of reasons, to try to convince Canadians and MPs that their bill was required.

"That there was a problem he personally had witnessed. A crime he had witnessed when in fact it wasn't true. He knows it wasn't true.''

The Liberals are just as interested in motive. They want to know why Butt concocted this story in the first place, particularly as it suggests he witnessed people violating election rules and never bothered to report it.

Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux wondered whether anyone from Elections Canada's enforcement office contacted Butt after he told his story. He also demanded to know what role, if any, the government played in investigating his claims.

As yet there is no answer to either of those questions.

The real issue

The furore over Butt's comments all but obscured the bitter debate over the Conservatives decision to rewrite the rules governing federal elections, and to push the bill through Parliament before the summer.

Among other things the Fair Elections Act would raise the limits on political donations and increase penalties on anyone who breaks election rules.

Most controversially, the government wants to separate the roles of running elections from enforcing election law, reduce Elections Canada's public information role and scrap the long-established practice of allowing someone to vouch for another voter who doesn't have proper identification.

Apart from limiting potential voters (those without government-issued ID), the proposed law would require the public prosecutor, who is a government appointee, to approve any investigations under the Elections Act.

NDP leader Thomas Mulcair says the new election law potentially discriminates against low-income voters who may not have the kind of ID that would now be required. (Sean Kilpatrick / Canadian Press)

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair says the bill discriminates against seniors, members of First Nations and young people, who might not always have appropriate ID and who "don't necessarily vote Conservative."

It's why his party has decided to hold its own cross-country hearings on the bill, if only to highlight how unfair the changes are.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Wednesday waved away what he called "NDP conspiracy theories.''

"The intention of the act is to ensure everyone who votes are valid, registered voters and that they can identify themselves. These are the objectives, making sure the vote is fair and that all people who vote are entitled to vote and only vote once.''

Voting irregularities have been a serious issue in recent elections, particularly for the Conservatives, with charges of exceeding campaign spending limits and making misleading calls to voters.

Still, the government hasn't come up with much to justify the kinds of changes referred to by the prime minister, let alone any evidence to support the kind of irregularities in Brad Butt's tale of fancy.

Those things might just be enough for the NDP to get people believing in conspiracy theories.

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'It seemed like we were having fun': Kimmel defends Rob Ford interview

Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel said it was not his intention to upset Rob Ford during the mayor's appearance on his ABC program Monday night.

Kimmel razzed the Toronto mayor during his guest appearance over a series of unflattering and controversial incidents that have garnered Ford worldwide attention.

"It seemed like we were having fun," said Kimmel as he opened his monologue Tuesday night.

"But then after the show, apparently he was upset. Why, I'm not exactly sure. I asked him about drinking and smoking crack — what were we supposed to talk about, his other hobbies?"

Kimmel noted that after the show, Ford "left right away mad," but changed his tune after perhaps watching it again or thinking about it out on the flight home.

The Ford brothers have no complaints about late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel's jokes on Monday night. (Jimmy Kimmel Live)

Kimmel then played video of a scrum at Toronto city hall where Ford denied that Kimmel had made a fool out of him.

"I knew I was going into a lion's den but I held my own," the mayor said.

After the clip ended with Ford stating he "loves the people in L.A.," Kimmel declared, "and we love you too. In fact we might even be in love with you, Mayor Ford."

Kimmel said he had no intention of upsetting the mayor, adding, "I hope we're still on for go-carting this weekend."

He said he felt bad that Ford didn't get more time to promote the city of Toronto and said he would make it up to him.

"The last thing we need is a war with Canada," Kimmel said before showing a video of a tongue-in-cheek tour of various Toronto landmarks shot in 2011.

During his city hall scrum Tuesday morning, an upbeat Ford sloughed off Kimmel's suggestion the mayor find someone to talk to about his addictions.

"I don't have any personal issues," Ford said. "We've gone down that road a number of times."

Ford had described himself on the program as a "normal, average, hard-working politician that's real." 

"You are not the average politician my friend," Kimmel retorted.

'I asked him about drinking and smoking crack — what were we supposed to talk about, his other hobbies?'- Jimmy Kimmel, host of Jimmy Kimmel Live

Ford's councillor brother Doug Ford, who accompanied the mayor to L.A., said Tuesday that the show was like a "church picnic."

He also seized on Kimmel's pronouncement that Ford was the "most wonderful mayor" he had ever witnessed.

"Jimmy Kimmel, as he said, 'You're the best mayor'," Doug Ford said. "He was sincere when he said that."

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Anti-virus software ‘totally useless’ in face of growing malware threat

Some computer consultants say the global malware threat has gotten so bad that conventional security measures, such as anti-virus software, are no longer adequate to fight them.

Anti-virus programs are "totally useless," says Mohammad Mannan, an assistant professor at the Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering in Montreal.

"If you use them, you might even be vulnerable [to malware] to some extent," he says.

A recent Visa survey showing that 92 per cent of respondents under the age of 35 had been the target of phishing scams demonstrates the tenacity of the hackers who are trying to seize personal financial information.

Anti-virus software works on the principle of identifying malevolent files and infected sites. But because of the sheer volume of malware online nowadays, rather than blacklisting bad sites we should be "whitelisting" the good ones, says Stu Sjouwerman, founder and CEO of U.S.-based computer security consultancy KnowBe4.com.

The amount of malicious software — better known as "malware"— circulating on the web has grown significantly in the past decade.

According to figures from virus detection sites, in 2002 there were an estimated 17 million known "good" executable files from various existing applications on the commercial internet, while antivirus engines detected two million nefarious ones.

By 2012, there were 40 million known good files and 80 million bad ones.

Malware threat growing

The main driver of this shift is cybercrime, says Fabrice Jaubert, a software developer who works with Google's malware detection team in Montreal.

In the past, malware was often the work of malicious individuals or pranksters looking for recognition of their coding prowess. But according to Jaubert, computer attacks nowadays are perpetrated almost entirely by organized crime.

Click on the graphic to learn about the most threatening cyber threats to personal computers. (CBC)

"It's 100 per cent criminal – or 99.99999 per cent," says Jaubert. "The end goal here is money — big money."

Criminal hackers look for ways to install malware on your computer for the purpose of stealing your passwords, credit card numbers and banking information — which they can sell to other criminals — or commandeering your computer to distribute illicit material such as porn.

Cybercrime is estimated to be a $3 billion US industry, and its perpetrators are largely based in eastern European countries such as Romania, Russia and Ukraine, says Sjouwerman, author of Cyberheist: The Biggest Financial Threat Facing American Businesses Since the Meltdown of 2008.

One of the reasons malware is such a widespread problem is that it has become harder for consumers to detect, says Tony Anscombe, senior security evangelist for anti-virus firm AVG.

"Malware viruses used to be disruptive — if you got one, you knew you had it. Now, they're deceptive and hide in the background," Anscombe says.

There are a number of ways hackers can get into your computer, but nowadays, a lot of it is accomplished by "social engineering." For example, you may get an email or even a phone call that appears to be from a bank or a tech support representative asking you to open an email attachment or to click through to an infected website. 

The problem with anti-virus software 

In the face of this ever-present threat, computer security firms have made billions of dollars selling anti-virus software to consumers.

The major problem, says Concordia's Mannan, is that anti-virus software is by nature reactive, which means that it responds to specific malware after it has been distributed. Should a malware writer change a few lines of code, however, that anti-virus solution suddenly becomes obsolete.

It's the sheer number of malware variations that makes it impossible for anti-virus software to effectively combat the problem, says Mannan. To illustrate this, he points to the Storm botnet of 2007, a sophisticated piece of malware that affected millions of computers worldwide and generated 8,000 variations of itself every day.

"How many updates or variants are you going to catch, if you're an anti-virus company?" Mannan asks.

But while anti-virus software isn't foolproof, it's "a long way from useless," says Brian Bourne, co-founder of Toronto's annual SecTor cybersecurity conference.

He likens anti-virus software to locking the doors of your car.

"It doesn't stop someone who's motivated from stealing your car, but it does force them to put a little bit of effort in and it does mean you're not quite as easy [a target] as the unlocked car beside you," he says.

Google's Jaubert says that in recent years, some hackers have even taken to posing online as anti-virus companies with legitimate-looking websites, finding victims by ironically playing on their fear of malware. They offer "virus scans" that are actually malware.

Is 'whitelisting' the answer?

Given these overwhelming threats, Sjouwerman believes whitelisting is vital to keep web surfers safe.

The principle is similar to verified accounts on Twitter, which was a response to the proliferation of bogus accounts (usually ones pretending to belong to celebrities). Rather than identifying all the fake accounts, Twitter's verification process simply certifies the legitimate one.

Whitelisting has been around for more than a decade, says Mannan, but only a few companies offer it right now.

The way it works is that anytime you surf the web, the whitelist prompt appears in your browser. If you go to a website that has been penetrated by hackers, the browser pops up a stern warning telling you not to proceed to the site.

Google's Chrome browser "has this to a degree, but that's all based on blacklists," says Sjouwerman.

Whitelisting would keep a list of good sites on your workstation and in the cloud, which is a "sanity check" for the list on your computer.

Sjouwerman is convinced it's the only way to deal with the growing malware threat.

"We need to do a 180, and we need to stop keeping the bad guys out, because you can't keep up," says Sjouwerman.

"That's why I'm on an evangelizing rampage to tell people we need to go to whitelisting."

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On Ukraine, only money and hard power count: Neil Macdonald

Listening to U.S. President Barack Obama bang on this week about the importance of world opinion and obeying international law and respecting sovereignty and being on the right side of history, you had to wonder whether he didn't have a little voice in his head whispering: "Really? Seriously? I'm actually saying this stuff?"

This is the commander-in-chief of a military that operates a prison camp on Cuban soil, against the explicit wishes of the Cuban government, and which regularly fires drone missiles into other countries, often killing innocent bystanders.

He is a president who ordered that CIA torturers would go unprosecuted, and leads a nation that has invaded other countries whenever it wished, regardless of what the rest of the world might think.

Disclaimer here: Vladimir Putin's proclaimed justification for invading Ukraine — protecting Russian-speaking "compatriots" in that country from some imagined violence — stinks of tribalism.

His rationale is essentially ethnic nationalism, something responsible for so much of the evil done throughout human history.

Stated motivation aside, though, what Putin is doing is really no different from what other world powers do: protecting what they regard as national self-interest.

And so far, he's done it without bloodletting.

Imagine, for a moment, what Washington would do if, say, Bahrain's Shia population, covertly supported by Tehran, staged a successful uprising and began to push itself into Iran's orbit.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet is headquartered in Bahrain, just as Russia's Black Sea Fleet is parked at its huge naval bases in the Crimea.

To pose the scenario is to answer the question of how America would react.

The same goes for all the other countries in America's political realm. The Philippines, South Korea, certain Persian Gulf nations. Imagine if Russia's military tried to return to Cuba.

The order of things

There is an order of things; it is disturbed at the world's peril.

And Ukraine, for better or worse — decidedly worse, those in the western portion of the country will tell you — has for centuries been in Russia's sphere.

Armed men, believed to be Russian soldiers, stand outside the civilian port in the Crimean town of Kerch on Monday. (Thomas Peter ?Reuters)

Crimea, the region of Ukraine now occupied by Russia, was part of the Soviet Union and was deeded to Ukraine in 1954 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of a treaty that bonded much of Ukraine to Tsarist Russia.

To suggest, as European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso did this week, that Ukrainians "have shown that they belong culturally, emotionally but also politically to Europe," is just wishful thinking, even if some Ukrainians wish it were true.

Furthermore, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was right when he pointed out that many of the countries denouncing Putin's intervention were actively involved in encouraging anti-Russia Ukrainians to overthrow an elected, if distasteful, president and government.

Victoria Nuland, a senior American diplomat, was caught in flagrante delicto a few weeks back, chatting with another American official about which Ukrainian opposition figures should and shouldn't be installed.

Washington's reply: It was unconscionable of Russia to intercept and leak that discussion.

More angry flailings

Incidentally, some of the Ukrainian opposition groups that have now ended up in power are thuggish, anti-Semitic, anti-Russian, extreme right-wingers.

Putin's description of them — ultranationalists — was mild. You just wouldn't know it listening to Western politicians.

In Obama's case, sitting beside him on Monday as he gave his lecture on international law from the Oval Office was close ally Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Israeli prime minister, having just engaged in a protracted, robust handshake for the cameras, presides over country that operates a military occupation in the West Bank, violating the "international law" Obama was demanding Putin obey.

The U.S. insists that Israel's occupation can only be solved by respectful negotiation between the parties themselves, and it vehemently opposes punishing Israel with the sort of moves currently being contemplated against Russia.

It's easy to go on and on in this vein — Britain's prime minister, who leads a nation that helped invade Iraq on a false pretext, denouncing Putin's pretext for going into Crimea. The NATO powers that helped bring about the independence of Albanian Kosovars complaining about the separatist aspirations of Russian-speaking Ukrainians, etc.

But that's diplomacy. Hypocritical declarations and acts are woven into its essence.

What's remarkable is the unspoken pact among the Western news media to report it all so uncritically.

When Obama spoke, the gaggle of reporters in attendance rushed to report his statements, mostly at face value.

Likewise, Western news reports seriously reported Russia's ridiculous threat to end the role of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency, as though Russia's creditors will begin to accept rubles at whatever exchange rate Putin decrees.

On TV and in print, we hear serious talk about the possibility of economic sanctions against Russia — which would only trigger a devastating trade back-blast against European economies.

Republican Senator John McCain says it is Barack Obama's "feckless foreign policy" that is to blame for Russia's invasion of Crimea. However, he added, a military response is not on the table. (Reuters)

Other media analysts agree with the angry flailings of U.S. foreign policy hawks, who seem to think Obama should be much more aggressive with Putin, although they have few concrete suggestions. (A frustrated Senator John McCain demanded that rich Russians be barred from Las Vegas.)

The unspoken media-government arrangement is understandable, I suppose.

We must at least pretend there's international law and fairness and basic rules, because it reassures us that we live in a world where raw power doesn't ultimately rule.

But it's all just gibberish; through the looking glass. We might as well be reporting that slithy toves gyre and gimble in the wabe.

Money and hard power count, and that's that. The big players have it, and the smaller players play along. If we need the anaesthetic liquor of self-delusion to deal with it, well, drink up.

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Another Quebec referendum? Get ready for the federal political dance

With an election call expected today in Quebec, Premier Pauline Marois will set off a frantic race in the province and a delicate dance in Ottawa.

The Parti Québécois is ahead in the polls and gaining momentum in the weeks leading up to the campaign.

Most pollsters, pundits, and politicians (for what they are worth) predict the odds of a Parti Québécois majority somewhere between "likely" and "a sure thing."

Although Marois hasn't yet formally committed to another sovereignty referendum, should she win a majority of the national assembly's 125 seats, those who would be called to arms for another national unity battle are bracing for it.

"Look, this is the last hurrah of that generation," NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said recently in an interview with CBC's The House.

The strategy for federal(ist) politicians will come in three waves:

1st wave: Let the chips fall where they may

Federal politicians of all stripes will be reminded that this is Quebec's election and to stay out of it.

For some, it's a question of not doing or saying anything the PQ would quickly spin into "interference" from Ottawa in Quebec's affairs — thereby triggering a backlash to federalist efforts.

For others, it's about not being sure whose side members of your team might come out on.

This task will be easiest for the governing Conservatives. With only five MPs in the province, it's not very difficult to keep a tight leash on them.

Also, with the choice for Quebec voters being among a sovereigntist party, a soft-nationalist party and a Liberal Party — the Conservatives don't really have a horse in this race.

The bigger concern for the governing party is having someone express the "good riddance" sentiment felt by some pockets in the "rest of Canada" who are a little fatigued after decades of battles to keep Quebec in the country.

For the Liberals the goal is to not make things worse for their provincial cousins.

Justin Trudeau's year at the helm of the party has seen the support for the Liberals jump in Quebec, but sticking below 40 per cent.

The Trudeau name still holds bitter memories for some in the province who haven't forgotten — or forgiven — the War Measures Act being invoked during the 1970 October Crisis.

To be fair, not many of those who still curse Pierre Elliott Trudeau would vote for the federalist option in Quebec,

The risk lies in the simple mathematics one must always consider when pondering the "Quebec Question" in the current generation: roughly 30 per cent of the population are die-hard federalists, 30 per cent are pur et dur separatists, and the remaining 40 per cent waver between the camps. 

A polarizing figure must be certain his or her poles are aligned in the desired direction before intervening.

The NDP has the most challenging time of it. With fully three-quarters of Quebec's seats in the House of Commons, the NDP's Quebec caucus represents a cross-section of the province's political landscape.

Although none of the MPs is currently openly advocating for Quebec sovereignty or the PQ, there are many who have aligned with the sovereigntist Québéc Solidaire.

The problem with Mulcair picking sides is that not all of his caucus may follow.

So, he's keeping it simple: "We didn't get involved in the provincial campaign last time around. We won't be getting involved this time," he told reporters on the eve of the election call.

Exempt from this non-interference rule, of course, is what's left of the Bloc Québécois.

Down to four MPs (after expelling one for deigning to criticize the PQ's highly controversial charter of values and picking up another who defected from the NDP over its position on the Clarity Act) they are free to openly and vigorously support their provincial counterparts.

2nd wave: Turn the other cheek

Doctors swear a vow to do no harm. In the event of a PQ majority, that will become the mantra of federal politicians.

The latest polls from Quebec put support for sovereignty right about where it's been for about a decade, hovering in the upper-30 per cent range. The PQ is doing what it can to change that, and will continue to do so.

The charter of values, was the first real salvo from Quebec trying to bait Ottawa into constitutional battle.

While obviously objecting to the charter of values' clearly ethno-nationalist goals, Ottawa has not made overt pre-emptive efforts to stop it..

The PQ is using the issue to polarize the electorate and return the battle in Quebec to a more favourable two-way by undermining the nascent CAQ.

It's not clear if this political ploy will also provoke a crisis of the magnitude necessary for the PQ to carry a sovereignty referendum.

Christian Bourque of Leger marketing says, "It would take a severe crisis, like the death of Meech Lake, to sort of revive that flame. That isn't burning very high right now. And I don't see it right now, it doesn't seem to be in the cards."

While the eventuality of a third Quebec referendum may be a ways off, the next federal election will be 18 months down the road.

3rd wave: Crisis presents opportunity

Quebec will hold 78 of the House of Commons' 338 seats after reallocation comes into effect in the next election.

The Conservatives proved in 2011 you don't necessarily need to win that many seats in the country's second most populous province to form a majority government, but that is the exception, not the rule.

It's been a tough slog for the governing party to win (and then keep) seats in Quebec — a PQ government spoiling for a fight won't make that any easier.

Few expect the NDP to fully repeat the "Orange Crush" of 2011 in the next election, but clearly Mulcair is pitching to Canadians that he is best positioned to carry the "No" banner in any eventual referendum campaign.

For the Bloc Québécois it could mean a new lease on life. With another referendum in the air, it could argue its place to defend Quebec's interests in Ottawa should be renewed.

Although that would be quite a feat.

The BQ formed in 1990 as the Meech Lake accord was collapsing. At the time seven MPs from the then Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals abandoned their parties to sit with the charismatic Lucien Bouchard.

Today, the Bloc Québécois has four members in the House of Commons, is leaderless, and Quebec has just set aside its differences with Ottawa and signed a $115-million deal on job training — a move Quebec's Labour Minister Agnès Maltais says recognizes Quebec's "unique character."

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Fake doctor asks desperate family for $50K for surgery

A Windsor, Ont., man has been charged after he allegedly posed as a doctor trying to get a desperate family to pay $50,000 for a surgery that would cure their daughter's disorder.

Windsor police claim the phony doctor even gave the girl a physical.

Police would not say how old the girl is or what disorder she has suffered from since birth. Police offered no other details on the family.

The investigation started with the discovery of a $15,000 payment to a furniture company, which was eventually determined to be to fraudulent.

As part of that investigation, police searched a home in east Windsor, seized the furniture, and returned it to the store.

Later, police determined the same man was posing as a medical doctor with practising privileges at hospitals in the United States.

During that investigation, officers heard the man had been allegedly telling several people in the city that he was a licensed medical doctor, with affiliations with and practising privileges at hospitals in the U.S. 

Investigators believe the 32-year-old suspect may have offered other people medical assistance.

Police are now asking for tips from the public.

The man is charged with half a dozen fraud-related charges, that include:

• Fraud over $5,000.
• Two counts of theft under $5,000.
• Two counts of fraud under $5,000.
• Attempted fraud over $5,000.
• Uttering a fraudulent document
• Forging a trademark.
• Assault.

Police say the assault stems from the alleged physical.

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