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Tapping Cell Phones: Identity Theft Solutions
Last week at an identity theft speech for the Department of Defense, I met two soldiers who alerted me to the new security risk of Cell Phone Tapping. SigInt (or signal interception) has long been a part of warfare and espionage. But the possibilities erupt with the advent of cell phone tapping. Imagine the conversation of a soldier being overheard by the enemy – deployment details, troop locations, command structure, strategic and tactical information. The prospect is terrifying for our national security.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: cell phone, software, surveillance, tapping
LifeLock has been the victim of identity theft, and it will ultimately improve their product.
Over the weekend, LifeLock, the identity theft prevention marketing machine, lost a piece of who they are (were) when a judge stripped them of their most fundamental prevention tool — automatic fraud alerts on consumer credit reports. The net result is that LifeLock is having to strengthen it’s underlying identity theft monitoring architecture to fill the marketing hole, moving its product closer to superior identity surveillance services such as CSIdentity Protector.
I have never been the strongest supporter of LifeLock. Why? Because most every protection they offered out of the gate were steps you could take for yourself, for free. For example:
- Place a Fraud Alert on your credit files. (A stronger solution is to Freeze Your Credit with Experian, Equifax and TransUnion.)
- Opt Out of financial junk mail.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Identity Surveillance, Identity Theft Monitoring, LifeLock
In a New York Times Magazine article entitled Facebook Exodus, Virginia Heffernan questions whether Facebook users are losing interest like kids lose interest in a new toy. Heffernan cites the reasons her friends are defecting:
- It makes us too nosy, too focused on other people’s dirt (our “friends”)
- Some fear stalkers
- Some feel their privacy is being compromised
- Some disappear without a word
In addition to this, I would add:
- It takes a lot of time away from real-life interactions
- We remember why we weren’t in touch with those old friends from high school – they wouldn’t even talk to me then!
- People are tired of having more of a relationship with a screen than an actual human
- It encourages others to talk about you in an open forum, which is fine if everyone loves you
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: facebook defection, facebook exodus, facebook privacy
Facebook privacy has taken a step forward. Last week I wrote about Facebook Safety Tips, as privacy is becoming a key factor in the social networking world. Yesterday, Facebook announced that they would tighten up privacy in response to a set of recommendations made by the Canadian government (Facebook Privacy Announcement).
Here is the gist of the Facebook Privacy Changes that will be implemented in the next 12 months:
Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: facebook privacy, Facebook Safety
Identity monitoring is more than just monitoring your credit.
Why do so many people believe that credit alerts will protect them from the ever-growing threat of identity theft? According to the Federal Trade Commission (www.ftc.gov), credit monitoring detects less than 20 percent of identity theft.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: identity monitoring
Having a great meeting planning guide can be a great time saver when attempting to plan any sort of meeting/conference.
Meeting planners have more on their plates at one time than just about any profession I’ve experienced. Who else spends months anticipating every minute detail leading up to an event only to find out that their work has just begun? And to discover that many of the rules have changed mid-course?
Putting together a successful meeting can be a stressful endeavor, which is why I have put together a “best practices” meeting planning guide, with 5 important tips for planning an “out of this world” meeting. These tips are strategic in nature – how to move from organizing speakers to hiring speakers that rock.
This guide will help you find new and creative ways to engage your audience, and provide you tips for creating a conference/meeting participants will never forget.
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: meeting planners, meeting planning guide
I just returned from doing an identity theft speech for the Department of Defense, and after the speech, a woman asked me a great question broader than just identity theft:
Do users of personal (not job related) email have a right to expect privacy? Does an email communication constitute a form of publication?
Email Privacy
Unless you own the servers that the mail is being processed on and transferred to, you have no right
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: email privacy, Identity Theft Speech
Albert "Segvec" Gonzalez
Operation Get Rich or Die Tryin is the name that Albert Gonzalez gave to his scheme of stealing more than 130 million credit and debit card numbers from you and me. Today, Gonzalez, along with two unnamed Russian conspirators, was indicted in the state of New Jersey. Gonzalez, known by his alias of Segvec, was part of a cyber-crime ring that hacked into the computer systems of at least five major companies, including Heartland Payment Systems, 7-Eleven, TJMAXX, Hannaford Bros. Super Markets and Dave & Busters.
This is likely the largest case of identity theft ever prosecuted, comprising more that 130 million card numbers
Tactics: Gonzalez and his conspirators reviewed Fortune 500 Companies, performed reconnaissance on their retail stores, determined weaknesses in their payment systems and then utilized malware (malicious software) to intercept credit card numbers, expiration dates and names as they were transmitted from company to company
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: albert gonzalez, Credit Card, get rich or die tryin, Heartland, segvec
Facebook safety has a direct correlation to your business’s bottom line.
Facebook, and social networking sites in general, are in an awkward stage between infancy and adulthood – mature in some ways, helpless in others. On the darker side of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, scammers and identity thieves are drooling at the sight of this unchecked data playground. In contrast, most social networkers are addicted to all of the friendships they are creating and renewing.
There is no denying that Facebook and other social networking sites have a very luring appeal. You can sit in the comfort of your own home and suddenly have a thriving social life. You can look up old friends, make new ones, build business relationships and create a profile for yourself that highlights only your talents and adventures while conveniently leaving out all your flaws and troubles. It is easy to see why Facebook has acquired over 200 million users worldwide in just over five years. Which is why Facebook safety is still so immature: Facebook’s interface and functionality has grown faster than security can keep up.
Unfortunately, most people dive head first into this world of social connectedness without thinking through the ramifications of all the personal information that is now traveling at warp speed through cyberspace. It’s like being served a delicious new drink at a party, one that you can’t possibly resist because it is so fun and tempting and EVERYONE is having one. The downside? Nobody is thinking about the information hangover that comes from over-indulgence: what you put on the Internet STAYS on the internet, forever. And sometimes it shows up on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, in the hands of a prospective employer or your boss’s inbox. All of the personal information that is being posted on profiles — names, birth dates, kids’ names, photographs, pet’s names (and other password reminders), addresses, opinions on your company, your friends and your enemies — all of it serves as a one-stop shop for identity thieves. It’s all right there in one neat little package and all a scammer has to do to access it is become your “friend”.
Follow these Five Facebook Safety Tips and save yourself the trouble…
5 Facebook Safety Tips
Facebook Safety Tip #1: If they’re not your friend, don’t pretend. Don’t accept friend requests unless you absolutely know who they are and that you would associate with them in person, just like real friends.
Facebook Safety Tip #2: Post only what you want made public. Be cautious about the personal information that you post on any social media site, as there is every chance in the world that it will spread beyond your original submission. It may be fun to think that an old flame can contact you, but now scammers and thieves are clambering to access that personal information as well.
Facebook Safety Tip #3: Manage your privacy settings. Sixty percent of social network users are unaware of their default privacy settings. Facebook actually does a good job of explaining how to lock your privacy down (even if they don’t set up your account with good privacy settings by default). To make it easy for you, follow these steps:
- Spend 10 minutes reading the Facebook Privacy Policy. This is an education in social networking privacy issues. Once you have read through a privacy policy, you will never view your private information in the same way. At the point the privacy policy is putting you to sleep, move on to Step 2.
- Visit the Facebook Privacy Help Page. This explains how to minimize all of the possible personal information leakage that you just read about in the privacy policy. Once you understand this on one social networking site, it becomes second nature on most of the others.
- Now it is time to customize your Facebook Privacy Settings so that only information you want shared, IS shared. This simple step will reduce your risk of identity theft dramatically.
Facebook Safety Tip #4: Keep Google Out. Unless you want all of your personal information indexed by Google and other search engines, restrict your profile so that it is not visible to these data-mining experts.
Facebook Safety Tip #5: Don’t unthinkingly respond to Friends in Distress. If you receive a post requesting money to help a friend out, do the smart thing and call them in person. Friend in Distress schemes are when a thief takes over someone else’s account and then makes a plea for financial help to all of your friends (who think that the post is coming from you). As with all matters of identity, verify the source.
Following these 5 Facebook Safety tips are a great way to prevent an information-sharing hangover.
The best way to protect you and your children from Online threats is to educate yourself about Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other online social networking utilities. We recently published the Facebook Safety Survival Guide (with Parents’ Guide to Online Safety) with that exact goal in mind. Social networking is immensely powerful and is here for the long run, but we must learn to harness and control it.
John Sileo is the award-winning author of Stolen Lives, Privacy Means Profit and the Facebook Safety Survival Guide. His professional speaking clients include the Department of Defense, the FTC, FDIC, Pfizer, Prudential and hundreds of other organizations that care about their information privacy. Contact him directly on 800.258.8076.
Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Facebook, Facebook Safety, linkedin, Must Read, Online/Social Media Privacy, Privacy, social networking, twitter
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Tapping Cell Phones: Identity Theft Solutions
