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If you’re thinking “this couldn’t happen to my child,” think again! Let’s look at
Who Does This?
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.
Frankly, it doesn’t take much to get the crime underway; all a criminal needs is the child’s name and Social Security Number. These pieces of personal information are exposed in a variety of ways:
- When registering for daycare, schools and recreational sports
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: child identity theft, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention
Were you surprised the other day when I said that your children are highly attractive targets of identity thieves because they have untouched and unblemished credit records? Let me tell you just how easy it happens.
How Does It Happen?
All an identity thief needs to ruin your child’s bright financial future is her name and Social Security Number.
“Shouldn’t my child’s age show up on any credit background check, shouldn’t the merchant recognize that the person in front of them buying a car on credit isn’t seven years old?” you ask.
Yes, it should, but the people screening the credit report rarely give it the time and care necessary to detect fraud.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: child identity theft, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Speaker, Workplace ID Theft
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
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
By Mickey Murphy
Information security. Identity theft. Black hat hackers. This all sounds like three-alarm lingo from some old DC comic book: “Immediately sign over all of your wealth, or I will hack you and steal your identity!” What do these oblique, non-intuitive terms mean? Here is how Wikipedia defines them: Information security — “Protecting information and information systems from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification or destruction.” Identity theft — Fraud that involves someone pretending to be someone else in order to steal money or get other benefits.” Black hat hackers (also known as crackers) — “Hackers who specialize in unauthorized penetration” of computer systems, as opposed to white hat hackers who test computer systems for companies to determine their penetrability.
However we characterize them, information security, identity theft and so on represent major challenges today.
Posted in Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Company Protection, Convention Planners, Corporate Incentive Travel, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Meeting Planner Safety, meeting planners, Meeting Planners Guide
This article provides a more detailed guide to reading your credit report as referenced in Privacy Means Profit.
A credit report is a history of how you or your company borrow and then pay off your credit, including delinquency and bankruptcy. There are currently three main credit bureaus in the United States—Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. If you own a home, have a credit card, lease a car, or apply for or use credit of any sort, this information is reported to one, two or all three of these credit bureaus. In addition, they collect information on how timely you pay your bills, how often you are tardy, how frequently your credit is checked by companies and any changes of address, employment, or personal information.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Credit Freeze, credit history, credit reports, Equifax, Experian, identity theft expert, John Sileo, Order Credit Report, reading credit reports, TransUnion
Nigerian scams happen everyday to thousands of victims in various ways: email, snail mail, fax, Facebook and for the first time in our experience, the “Contact Us” page on our website. This is significant because it shows the the technology of the Nigerian crime rings has advanced enough to foil the Captcha device on our website.
Nigerian scams (more accurately known as advanced-fee fraud) have been around for ages and were named because they originated in Nigeria. To create the scam, criminals generally claim that there is a large sum of money that can only be released to a relative of some deceased member of royalty. Victims are asked to provide a bank account into which the money can be transferred and are promised a large percentage of the money for performing the service. In some cases, victims may also be asked to pay a fee or a series of fees for the release of the money. Once the victim has provided account information, the criminals will often drain their bank accounts, and occasionally use that information to open new, fraudulent accounts.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: 419 Fraud, 419 Scam, Advanced Fee Fraud, Email Scam, Facebook, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Nigerian Scam
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
