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Latest "Identity Theft Prevention" Posts
You’ve heard it all before – conduct online business through secure Wi-Fi only, watch your incoming mail for erroneous credit invitations, check your statements and your credit reports, and set up strong passwords and alerts, yada yada! But here are a few additional times you’ll want to be vigilant, especially this holiday season!
- Car Loans. According to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, auto loan identity theft is twice as high as any other form. Most dealerships have you complete paperwork with identifying personal data (name, address, date of birth, phone number) up to and including a loan application, which likely includes your Social Security Number. How is this data handled? Unless you actually purchase the vehicle, and your paperwork becomes part of a permanent file, refuse to complete it. Most dealerships simply toss your paperwork after 30 days if you don’t make a purchase. Their trash receptacle then becomes a pre-qualified source for identity thieves.
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Identity Theft, Expert, Fraud, id theft, medical identity theft, Mortgage ID Theft, Mortgage Identity Theft, Sileo
Can social media and privacy mix? The short answer is no. Social media is social by nature (meaning others are involved) and is media based (meaning that the materials are designed to be easily communicated and shared). When something is essentially named Share with Others, privacy is an afterthought. But that doesn’t mean it should be completely non-existant, or at least transparent – so that we know what we are sharing with others.
The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) is about to hold Facebook to stronger safeguards regarding user privacy, but in the end, it won’t matter very much because they are leaving Facebook with lots of wiggle room.
Rumor has it that Facebook will soon have to acquire users’ consent before making changes to privacy policies that affect current user data. That is a total contrast to what they’ve done in the past, which is to rewrite their privacy policies to be less protective without so much as giving users a whiff of the changes to their privacy.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Facebook, FTC, Privacy, safety, Security, Sileo
Business Killers: Identity Theft and Data Breach Protection Webinar on November 10
On November 10, I will host an interactive webinar sponsored by Deluxe that will explore how small businesses can protect themselves from identity theft. As someone who lost more than $300,000 and my small business to identity theft, this is a topic I care about deeply. In addition to delivering keynote speeches at conferences, I also provide consulting and guidance to organizations like the Federal Trade Commission, Pfizer and the Department of Defense on how to best protect the sensitive data inside of their organizations.
Register now for tomorrow’s webinar.
During this multi-part webinar, I will provide simple, actionable tools and advice to help small businesses protect their data and retain information privacy. I’ll also explain how the information economy has shifted the competitive landscape and increased our data exposure. Attendees will learn the following:
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Digital Reputation & Trust, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Identity Theft, Check Fraud, Checks, Data Protection, Deluxe, Exposure, Fraud, Free, Privacy, Sileo, small business, Social Media Privacy, Theft, Webinar
London, UK (PRWEB) October 16, 2011
The world of identity theft is changing rapidly. Earlier this week Experian UK, a unit of one of the world’s largest credit-reporting agencies, hosted the 2011 Identity Theft & Fraud Forum at The Grove, a prestigious five-star resort located on the outskirts of London. The purpose of the Forum was to assemble a cross-cultural collection of thought leaders on identity theft prevention and to focus attention on Britain’s increasing financial battle with identity theft. Keynote presenters included highly regarded American identity theft expert John Sileo, Jairam Sridharan, Head of Retail Assets, Axis Bank of India and Jonathan Walsh, Head of Consulting and Analytics, Identity & Fraud at Experian.
During his afternoon presentation, Mr. Walsh revealed the results of a newly released study commissioned by Experian UK. The study found that cases of identity fraud have doubled in Britain over just the past six months and that the trend is likely to continue unless addressed.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Identity Theft, Experian, Expert, Fraud, Identity Theft Trends, Sileo, Speaker
If you missed the first part of this series, please visit Child Identity Theft (Part I).
Child Identity theft is the fastest growing sector of the identity theft “industry,” and the numbers are staggering. Although it’s difficult to estimate exactly how many children lose their identities since the crime can go undetected for years, the FTC states that 5% of identity theft cases target children, which translates into 500,000 kidnapped child identities per year, and growing. The Carnegie Mellon CyLab Report states that in 54% of the cases, the child was under the age of 14.
The identity thief is not always a stranger. In many cases, it’s a relative with bad credit who takes advantage of a child’s pristine credit. Conveniently, these family members generally have access to the information necessary to maximize the fraud with little attention. This seems absurd, but imagine a parent who is strapped for cash, has a bad credit score and needs to buy groceries. In this case, short-term thinking blinds the relative or friend to long-term consequences. In other instances, the child’s future is not taken into consideration at all.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Identity Theft, Child ID Theft, child identity theft, Child Identity Theft Statistics, children, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Statistics, John Sileo, kids
Freezing your credit is the number one way to protect against financial identity theft. If everyone in the country applied for a Credit Freeze, identity thieves would quickly be out of business. At least, a major part of their business. Take 30 minutes and lower your chances of identity theft drastically (see the online Freeze links at the bottom of this post).
To go directly to placing a security freeze on your 3 bureau accounts, page down to the bottom section.
Every time you establish new credit (e.g., open up a new credit card, store account or bank account, finance a car or home loan, etc.), an entry is created in your credit file which is maintained by companies like Experian, Equifax and TransUnion (listed below). The trouble is, with your name, address and social security number, an identity thief can pretend to be you and can establish credit (i.e., spend your net worth) in your name.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Identity Theft, Credit Freeze, Equifax, Experian, Freeze Credit, Freeze Your Credit, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Protection, Identity Theft Speaker, Prevention Tips, Prevention Tools, TransUnion
Oh what your mobile phone carrier knows and tracks about you! A one-page document from the Justice Department‘s cybercrime division shows how cell phone companies record and retain your call and surfing activity (calls, text messages, web surfing and approximate location). Here’s a summary of how each company retains your information (full details in the image below):
- Verizon Wireless – rolling one-year records of cell tower usage & what phone accessed what web site
- AT&T / Cingular – ongoing records of cell tower usage since July of 2008
- T-Mobile USA – doesn’t keep any data on Web browsing activity
- Sprint Nextel’s Virgin Mobile – 3 month record of text content
- Other than Virgin Mobile and Verizon, none of the carriers keep texts but they keep records of who visited a particular web site.
- Verizon keeps some information for up to a year that can be used to ascertain if a particular phone visited a particular Web site
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Identity Theft, AT&T, Cell, Identity Expert, John Sileo, Justice Department, Mobile, Privacy, Privacy Expert, Security, Security Expert, Sprint, Texts, Tmobile, Tracking, Verizon, Wireless
Information is the currency and lifeblood of the modern economy and, unlike the industrial revolution, data doesn’t shut down at dinnertime. As a result, the trend is towards hyper-mobile computing – smartphones and tablets – that connect us to the Internet and a limitless transfusion of information 24-7. It is an addiction that employers encourage because it inevitably means that we are working after hours (scanning emails in bed rather than catching up with our spouse).
In the work we do to change the culture of privacy inside of organizations, we have discovered a dilemma: iPads are not as secure as other forms of computing and are leaking significant amounts of organizational data to corporate spies, data thieves and even competing economies (China, for example, which would dearly love to pirate the recipe for your secret sauce). Do corporations, then, sacrifice security for the sake of efficiency, privacy for the powerful touch screens that offer a jugular of sensitive information?
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: data, Expert, ipad, iPad Security, iPad Security Settings, IT, John Sileo, Privacy, Protect my ipad, Protection, safety, Security, Sileo, Virus
The typical US consumer still swipes their card, credit or debit, with those same old black magnetic stripes. And, we hold our breath and hope they work, and don’t lead to erroneous (fraudulent) charges we have to defend. The rest of the world has switched to Smart cards, according to Peter Svensson, The Associated Press, in The Denver Post. “The problem with that black magnetic stripe on the back of your card is that it’s about as secure as writing your account information on a post-card”.
Svensson comments “Smart-cards (chip-based cards) can’t be copied, which greatly reduces the potential for fraud. Smart cards with built-in chips are the equivalent of a safe: They can hide information so it can be unlocked only with the right key”.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Chip, Credit Card, Credit Cards, Financial, Keynote Speaker, Security, Sileo, Smart Card, Smart Cards, Technology
