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Identity theft speaker John Sileo shares his tax-time identity theft prevention tips.
This past week, a New Jersey man admitted to stealing tens of thousands of dollars in government checks from mailboxes. He stole Social Security, tax refund and unemployment checks from November 2009 to April 2010, then recruited people to cash them using fake IDs. Prosecutors say the scheme cost the government more than $70,000. Not only did this criminal have the actual financial refunds from most individuals, but he also had identity information and even social security numbers.
Around this time of year, tax time, people are more vulnerable to Identity Theft. There is very little that is more damaging and dangerous to your identity than losing your tax records. After all, tax records generally contain the most sensitive personally identifying information that you own, including Social Security Numbers (for you, your spouse and maybe even your kids), names, addresses, employers, net worth, etc. Because of this high concentration of sensitive data, tax time is like an all-you-can-eat buffet for identity thieves. Here are some of the dishes on which they greedily feed:
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Data Breach, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo, Tax Identity Theft, tax time
Google recently offered $20,000 to the first person who could hack their web browser, Chrome. Without question, a hacker will crack it and prove that their browser isn’t as mighty as they might think.
So why waste the money?
In that question, ‘why waste the money?’ lies one of the root causes of all data theft inside of organizations. Google’s $20,000 investment is far from a waste of money. Consider:
- The average breach inside of an organization costs $6.75 million in recover costs (Ponemon Study). $20,000 up front to define weak points is a minuscule investment.
- Chrome is at the center of Google’s strategic initiatives in search, cloud computing, Google Docs, Gmail, displacing Microsoft IE and mobile OS platforms – in other words, it is a very valuable asset, so Google is putting their money where their money is (protecting their profits).
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Contest, Data Breach, data security, Google Chrome, hackers, Hacking, Identity Theft Prevention, Information Offense, John Sileo
The latest identity theft statistics released by the Identity Theft Resource Center documented 662 data breaches* in the United States in 2010. The message couldn’t be more clear:
Corporations are not yet taking identity theft and data breach seriously enough to properly train their employees, executives, and board on the BOTTOM-LINE DESTRUCTION caused by data breach.
Sure, at this point, many organizations pay lip service to data crimes. They have a privacy policy and their marketing materials state that they do everything in their power to protect your private information. Everything, that is, unless it costs them money to do so. Many corporations tend to hide behind the excuse that in these lean times, they can’t afford to take any additional security steps. But they must understand the disproportionate costs of recovering from theft rather than preventing it. In the simplest of terms, the ROI on data theft prevention training can easily be a thousand-fold. Each record lost, according to the Ponemon Institute, costs, on average, $204 to recover. Lose 1000 records (considered a very small breach), and you are suddenly out $204,000! According to the same study, the average cost for a business to recover from a data breach is $6.75 Million. The average cost to implement identity theft, social engineering and data breach training? In most cases, less than $50,000.
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Corporate Identity Theft, Data Breach, Data Breach Prevention, Data Breach Statistics, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Statistics 2010, Identity Theft Statsitics, ITRC, John Sileo, Statistics
The Social Security numbers, grades, and other personal identity information of over 40,000 former University of Hawaii students were posted online. The information was removed earlier this week, after almost 12 months online. The University apologized and explained that a faculty member doing a study on student success rates believed the information was being held on a secure server. It was not.
Apparently this was the third such breach that the University has suffered from in the past year. Each incident has increased student concern, and the university promises to beef up network security. It is beginning to look like these are promises that they have little intention of keeping. If the University were serious, they would immediately implement a data privacy awareness program to train staff and students on protecting private and sensitive information. There is no indication beyond empty press releases that they have begun taking even this most basic step.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Data Breach, Data Breach Expert, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo, University of Hawaii
Thanks to SmallBusinessComputing.com and Jennifer Schiff for this article!
In August 2010, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse published its latest Chronology of Data Breaches, which showed that since 2005 more than a half-billion sensitive records have been breached. Of those breached records — which contained such sensitive data as customer credit card or social security numbers — approximately one-fifth came from retailers, merchants and other types of non-financial, non-insurance-related businesses, the majority of which were small to midsized.
An equally scary statistic: approximately 80 percent of small businesses that experience a data breach go bankrupt or suffer severe financial losses within two years of a security breach, according to John Sileo, a professional identity theft consultant and speaker, who knows firsthand about the havoc a security breach can wreak on a small business.
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Business Identity Theft, Data Breach, Data Breach Expert, Data Breach Statistics, Identity Theft Speaker, Identity Theft Statistics, John Sileo, small business, Small Business Computing
Mobile Data Theft
Technology is the focal point of data breach and workplace identity theft because corporations create, transmit, and store so many pieces of information digitally that it becomes a highly attractive target. This book is not intended to address the complex maze that larger organizations face in protecting their technological and digital assets. Rather, the purpose of this book is to begin to familiarize business employees, executives, and vendors with the various security issues facing them.
The task, then, is to develop a capable team (internal and external) to address these issues. In my experience, the following technology-related issues pose the greatest data-loss threats inside organizations:
- Laptop Theft: According to the Ponemon Institute, 36 percent of reported breaches are due to a lost or stolen laptop.
- Mobile Data Theft: Thumb drives, CDs, DVDs, tape backups, smart phones
- Malware: Software that infects corporate systems, allowing criminals inside these networks
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Cellphone Theft, Data Breach, Data Protection, Identity Theft Prevention, laptop, laptop stolen, lost cellphone, Mobile Computing, mobile data, Mobile Data Breach, notebook, Privacy Means Profit, Sileo, stolen laptop, Technology, Workplace ID Theft
John Sileo knows identity theft and data breach first hand – he became “America’s Leading Identity Theft Speaker and Expert” after losing his business and more than $300,000 to these costly crimes. He has provided these Identity Theft Resources to help you protect your organization from suffering from the losses that result from unprotected private information. Visit John’s Identity Theft Prevention Store to learn more.
Hire John to train your employees to prevent identity theft, data breach and corporate espionage
Safe data is profitable data, whether it’s a client’s credit card number, a patient’s medical file, an employee’s benefit plan or sensitive intellectual capital. By the time John finishes his hilarious closing story, your audience will be fully empowered to protect private information, at home and at work.
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Data Breach, Data Breach Training, Fraud Training, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Resources, identity theft training, Information Security, seminars, Speaking, Speech, Speeches, training, workshops
Fellowes Powershred
Who cares about document shredders in a digital world? You should. We were supposed to have gone paperless by now, right? Rubbish. Paper rubbish, in fact.
You and I both know that we use as much paper as ever. We sign up for electronic statements and then print and file them, along with important emails, financial documents, etc. Paper documents are more plentiful than ever, and they pose a significant risk of workplace identity theft and data breach.
According to a recent study conducted by the ASBI: 80% of large organizations surveyed indicated that they had experienced one or more data breaches over the previous 12 months. 49% of those breaches involved the loss or theft of paper documents. The average breach recovery cost $7.2 Million!
Many businesses fail to realize is that paper documents pose just as much of a risk to an organization as electronic documents.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Product Endorsements by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Alliance for Secure Business Information, ASBI, Best Practices, Data Breach, Document Shredders, Document Shredding, Fellowes, Fellowes Shredders, identity theft expert, John Sileo, Paper Shredders, shredder selector, Workplace ID Theft
SentrySafe Fire Safes
A majority of our most valuable identity documents (passports, birth and death certificates, wills, trusts, deeds, brokerage information, passwords, health records, etc.) are exposed to identity theft (and natural disasters, such as fire and floods) as they sit in unlocked filing cabinets, banking boxes in the basement, office drawers or out in the open, on our desks. I spend an entire chapter in Privacy Means Profit talking about which documents to lock up, which to destroy and which to stop at the source. To complicate matters, the problem of data theft goes beyond paper documents to digital media. More than ever we need to be concerned with the physical protection of hard drives, cell phones, thumb drives, CDs and DVDs with sensitive personal or business data on them.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Product Reviews by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Data Breach, Document Protection, Document Shredding, Document Storage, Fire Safe, Fire Safes, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo
