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Companies like Baltimore's Terbium Labs have professionalized crawling the Dark Web, where criminals trade or sell large quantities of stolen credit card data and most other imaginable categories of personal information. Austin-based AllClear ID, formerly known as Debix, is among the companies that go beyond credit monitoring and report additional information to consumers. The idea behind what is being dubbed the Compromised Identity Exchange is to charge those most likely to be hit with follow-on fraud for access to information that reduces their risk.

Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook plans to visit Beijing later this month to meet high-level government officials, at a time when it is facing some setbacks in its most important overseas market, a source familiar with the matter said. Cook has frequently traveled to China since taking the helm of Apple five years ago, but his latest visit comes during a critical period. Last week, billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn said in an interview with cable television network CNBC that he had sold his entire stake in Apple, citing China's economic slowdown and worries about whether the government could make it very difficult for Apple to conduct business.

By Alex Dobuzinskis LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A cellphone expert overrode the lock function on an Apple iPhone to help Los Angeles police in a homicide investigation around the time U.S. authorities were battling the company to open other phones in criminal cases, court records showed on Thursday. The successful hack of the iPhone 5s in the Los Angeles case is another sign U.S. authorities are turning to third-party contractors to unlock smartphones rather than relying on manufacturers like Apple Inc , which helped in the past. The third-party hacks have Apple racing to strengthen its encryption technology.

By Himank Sharma MUMBAI (Reuters) – India has rejected a plan by Apple Inc to import used iPhones, government officials said on Wednesday, a blow to the U.S. tech giant that has been seeking to revive waning sales of its flagship smartphones. Apple sells what it calls refurbished iPhones at a discount in some countries, including the United States. Extending this practice to India would have likely helped it increase its share in one of the world's fastest growing smartphone markets against competitors with much cheaper offerings.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Monday partly dismissed a lawsuit filed by Twitter Inc in which the social media company argued it should be allowed to publicly disclose more details about requests for information it receives from the U.S. government. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, California also gave Twitter the opportunity to re-file its lawsuit to include more details about government decision-making, in order to try to move its claims forward. (Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Bill Rigby)

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A Facebook Inc shareholder filed a proposed class action lawsuit on Friday in a bid to stop the company's plan to issue new Class C stock, calling the move a “patent attempt” to entrench chief executive Mark Zuckerberg as controlling shareholder.

Facebook Inc's quarterly revenue rose more than 50 percent, handily beating Wall Street expectations as its wildly popular mobile app and a push into live video lured new advertisers and encouraged existing ones to boost spending. Facebook also announced it will create a new class of non-voting shares in a move aimed at letting Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg give away his wealth without relinquishing control of the social media juggernaut he founded. The company plans to create a new class of non-voting shares, which would be given as a dividend to existing shareholders.

Apple also said it was raising its capital return program by $50 billion through a $35 billion increase in its share buyback authorization and a 10 percent rise in the quarterly dividend. Apple said it sold 51.2 million iPhones in its second fiscal quarter, down from 61.2 million in the same quarter a year ago but above analysts' estimates of about 50 million devices. Shares of Apple fell 6 percent on heavy volume in after-hours trade, falling below $100 for the first time since February.

The attackers who stole $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank probably hacked into software from the SWIFT financial platform that is at the heart of the global financial system, said security researchers at British defense contractor BAE Systems. SWIFT, a cooperative owned by 3,000 financial institutions, confirmed to Reuters that it was aware of malware targeting its client software. Its spokeswoman Natasha Deteran said SWIFT would release on Monday a software update to thwart the malware, along with a special warning for financial institutions to scrutinize their security procedures.

(Reuters) – Verizon Communications Inc said an attacker had exploited a security vulnerability on its enterprise client portal to steal contact information of a number of customers. The company said the attacker however did not gain access to Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) or other data. Krebs On Security, which first broke the news of the breach, said a member of a underground cybercrime forum had posted a new thread advertising the sale of a database containing the contact information on some 1.5 million customers of Verizon Enterprise.