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Latest "Identity Theft Prevention" Posts
By Guest Blogger, Mike Spinney, The Ponemon Institute
I grow more and more convinced that, while the issues that keep us busy generate headlines that have migrated from the legal journals and trade publications into the mainstream media, the basic need for education among consumers becomes more urgent. Lately the Wall Street Journal has published a steady stream of insightful articles related to digital privacy, and data breaches are reported in local newspapers wherever and whenever they occur, but in my experience talking with regular folks, the lessons contained in these articles don’t seem to be having any meaningful effect.
Whenever I’ve had the privilege of standing before an audience of regular folks, the questions I hear over and over again are related to information so basic that in my professional interactions they don’t even come up. “Is it safe to send a check through the mail?” “Should I pay with cash, credit, or debit?” “How can I tell the difference between a fake email and a legitimate one?”
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Mike Spinney, Ponemon Institute, Privacy Professionals
The following is an excerpt from John’s latest book Privacy Means Profit. To learn more and to purchase the book, visit our website www.ThinkLikeASpy.com.
For businesses, shredding is low-hanging fruit (one of the easiest sources of data breach to eliminate). But businesses are so often focused on electronic forms of data breach that they fail to heed the following statistics highlighted in a recent Ponemon Institute study conducted for the Alliance for Secure Business Information:
- More than 50 percent of sensitive business data is still stored on paper documents.
- Forty-nine percent of data breaches reported in the survey were the result of paper documents.
- Sixty percent of businesses admitted that they didn’t provide the proper tools (e.g., shredders) to safely discard documents that were no longer needed.
- The average data breach recovery cost according to this survey was $6.3 million.
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Document Shredders, Identity Theft Prevention, Privacy Means Profit, Shred, Shredding, Sileo, Workplace ID Theft
When you are ‘friends’ with people on Facebook that you are not actually friends with, how do you know whether they have good intentions?
A recent segment on CNN discusses the risks that you may be taking while updating your Facebook status. You don’t know who is looking at your private information because it’s truly not private – it’s public. Keri McMullen found this out the hard way after she posted a simple status message that she was going to see a band with her fiancé. It only took the burglars calling the venue to find out what time the show was to let them know when they could break into her home. The burglars showed up 35 minutes after the McMullens left for the concert.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Burglary, CNN, facbook, Facebook, Facebook Safety, John Sileo, Online Safety, Robbery, Social Netowrking, Social Networking Expert
Facebook has the Population of the Third Largest Country
Wednesday, July 21, 2010 marked a big day for Facebook. CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg announced in a blog post that the social networking website hit over 500 million users in only 6 years.
If you take a look at the worlds largest countries in terms of population (as of today according to Wikipedia) you find that China is #1 with 1,339,130,000, India is #2 with 1,184,513,000 and #3 is the United States with only 309,944,000. This would mean that if Facebook were a real country with their population of 500,000,000, then it would clearly surpass the USA for the #3 ranking.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: facbook, Facebook, facebook privacy, Facebook Safety, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Mark Zuckerberg, social networking, Social Networking Expert
In the Privacy Calendar, the action items that are important to take to protect your identity are listed by priority rather than mind-set. The order was determined according to three criteria:
- Which steps need to be taken first to make the process simple?
- Which actions are most effective at preventing identity theft?
- Which items are you most likely to complete given time and resource constraints?
The detailed information for taking each of the steps is contained in the individual mind-set chapters of Privacy Means Profit, which are shown in italics and enclosed in parentheses following the steps, for easy identification. I strongly recommend that you refer back to each chapter for in depth explanations of each step.
I also highly recommend that you set up a schedule for yourself and complete the items phase by phase. Take 10 minutes a day, one hour per week, or one weekend a month and schedule time to ‘‘accumulate privacy.’’ If you have to wait on one of the action items—for example, you order your credit report but it will be 10 days before you receive it—move on to another of the items further down the list and return to the item you skipped when you receive the report.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Identity Protection, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Privacy Calendar, Privacy Means Profit
The world is spying on you, and you don’t really even know it. A recent investigation by the Wall Street Journal concludes that spying on consumers in order to sell their data is one of the fastest-growing internet businesses. Here is a summary of the most striking findings:
“The Study found that the nation’s 50 top websites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning… the Journal found new tools that scan in real time what people are doing on a Web page, then instantly assess location, income, shopping interests and even medical conditions. These profiles of individuals, constantly refreshed, are bought and sold on stock-market like exchanges.”
The tracking software records and analyzes your browsing patterns. It knows if you’re surfing porn sites, researching bipolar disorder or watching teen movie trailers. With startling accuracy, it interpret’s these patterns and sells the information to websites, sometimes within seconds, that want access to your wallet. What’s the big deal, you ask? Why not let them market to us in highly targeted ways?
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Cookies, Identity Theft Prevention, Internet, John Sileo, Privacy, surveillance, Tracking, Wall Street Journal
My girls messing around at the Barnes & Noble release of Privacy Means Profit.
Privacy Means Profit.
This book builds a bridge between good personal privacy habits (protect your wallet, online banking, trash, etc.) with the skills and motivation to protect workplace data (bulletproof your laptop, server, hiring policies, etc.).
Hardcover: 224 pages
Publish Date: 8.9.10 (August 9, 2010)
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN-10: 0470583894
ISBN-13: 978-0470583890
http://amzn.com/0470583894
Excerpt: At breakfast on the morning of August 12, 2003, a small and profitable computer company thrived at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. By lunchtime, that same business was on its way to ruin. Within twelve months, thanks to the theft of personal and company information, a forty-year-old family-business-turned-software-startup was doomed and John, heir to the prosperous enterprise, faced the prospect of prison for crimes he didn’t commit.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Barnes & Noble, John Sileo, Privacy Means Profit
Privacy Means Profit (Wiley) available in bookstores today!
Here are The Top 5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Buy It:
You love sharing bank account numbers, surfing habits and customer data with cyber thieves over unprotected wireless networks
You never tempt hackers and con artists by using Gmail, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Docs, or other cloud computing platforms to store or communicate private info, personally or professionally.
You bury your head in the sand, insisting that “insider theft” won’t affect your home or business.
You’ve already hardened your laptops and other mobile computing devices in 7 vital ways, eliminating a major source of both personal and corporate data theft.
You have a “thing” for identity theft recovery costs and would rather invest thousands in recovery than $25 in prevention.
If you want to defend yourself and your business against identity theft, data breach and corporate espionage, then buy a copy of Privacy Means Profit.
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 expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Protection, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Privacy Means Profit, Think Like A Spy, Wiley, Wiley & Sons
ThinkLikeASpy.com got a makeover!
We recently updated our website dedicated to my day job as a professional identity theft speaker and expert. The re-launch reflects the release of our new book, Privacy Means Profit, updated resources and our recent appearance on 60 Minutes.
We hope the new website will help you stay up to date on current information survival issues like social media exposure, browser espionage, cyber theft and host of other issues.
Feel free to email us with any questions, comments or feedback on the new site.
The New Features include:
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: identity theft expert, Identity Theft Speaker, Information Survival, Think Like A Spy
