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The IRS admittedly has little control over protecting your tax returns against identity theft. The problem is too big, the data too widely available, prevention too rarely attended to until it’s already too late.
Your tax returns are the Holy Grail of identity theft because they contain virtually every piece of information a fraudster needs to BECOME you. But you don’t have to be a victim; you simply need to take responsibility for what is rightfully yours – your tax return information and your identity. The changes aren’t difficult, they simply require you read through this document so that you recognize the risks. Once that’s done, you simply avoid the highest-risk behaviors.
Here is a comprehensive list of frauds, scams and high risk tax-time practices.
Top Tips for Tax Time Identity Theft Protection
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Identity Theft, breach, Data Breach, Fraud, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Privacy, Tax, tax fraud, Tax Identity Theft, Tax Preparation, Tax Return Theft, taxes, Theft
It’s nerve racking to realize that the IRS increasingly struggles to control taxpayer identity theft. Since 2008, the IRS has identified 470,000 incidents of identity theft affecting more than 390,000 taxpayers. “Victims of tax-related identity theft are the casualties of a system ill-equipped to deal with the growing proficiency and sophistication of today’s tax scam artists” said Sen. Bill Nelson, who chairs the newly formed Subcommittee on Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Growth.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Identity Theft, breach, Data Breach, Fraud, id theft, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Privacy, Tax, tax fraud, Tax Identity Theft, Tax Preparation, Tax Return Theft, taxes, Theft
The post appears like it’s coming from a known friend. It’s enticing (“check out what our old high school friend does for a living now!”), feeds on your curiosity and good nature, begs you to click. A quick peek at the video, a chance to win a FREE iPad or to download a coupon, and presto, you’ve just infected your computer with malware (all the bad stuff that sends your private information to criminals and marketers). Sound like the spam email of days gone by? You’re right – spam has officially moved into the world of social media, and it’s like winning the lottery for cyber thugs.
What is Social Spam?
Nothing more than junk posts on your social media sites luring you to click on links that download malicious software onto your computer or mobile device.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Cyber, Cyber Expert, data security, Facebook, identity theft expert, John Sileo, Like Jacking, Link Jacking, Online/Social Media Privacy, Privacy, Security, Sileo, social networking, Social Spam, Spam, Speaker, twitter
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
In the first part of this article series, we discussed why it is so important to protect your business data, including the first two steps in the protection process. Once you have resolved the underlying human issues behind data theft, the remaining five steps will help you begin protecting the technological weaknesses common to many businesses.
- Start with the humans.
- Immunize against social engineering.
Posted in Burning Questions (Video), Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Data Privacy", Business Security, data security, Detection Fraud, Engineering Social, Fraud, Fraud Detection, Fraud Expert, Fraud Speaker, Fraud Training, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, information, John Sileo, Keynote, Keynote Speaker, Part 2, Part II, Prevention, Privacy, professional speaker, Protection, Security, social engineering, social engineering expert, Speaker, Technology, Training Fraud
Businesses often make social engineering (or fraud) training boring! And that’s bad for your bottom line, because no one ends up remembering how to protect your organization against threats like data theft, corporate espionage or social networking exposure.
Too often, fraud and social engineering workshops cover just the concepts that define fraud rather than the feelings that signal it’s actually in process at the moment. The key to training your executives, employees and even customers on fraud is to let them experience what it feels like to be conned. In other words, they need to actually be socially engineered (manipulated into giving away their own private information) several times throughout the training so that they begin to reflexively sense fraud as it is happening. Like learning to throw a ball, there is no substitute for doing it for yourself. Fraud detection is similar; it takes actually doing it (or having it done to you) to fully understand the warning signs. Anything less will leave your audience yawning and uneducated.
Posted in Burning Questions (Video), Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Detection Fraud, Engineering Social, Fraud Detection, Fraud Expert, Fraud Speaker, Fraud Training, identity theft expert, John Sileo, Keynote Speaker, professional speaker, social engineering, social engineering expert, Training Fraud
Identity thieves are increasingly targeting children, in some cases stealing their identities even before they are born.
A TODAY Show/NBC investigation into child identity theft revealed that criminals routinely use a child’s untouched credit record to their advantage and get away with it for years or decades. This story shows how in more and more cases Social Security numbers are being stolen even before the child has been born.
Why is it so easy? Because Social Security numbers are not assigned randomly, meaning that they can predicted with a certain amount of accuracy. A SSN is simply a code that includes the location and date of where and when a baby was born. Thieves have figured out a system to predict these numbers and used them before they have been issued. The federal government maintains that in the next month or so, these numbers will be randomized and harder to predict and therefore, steal.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: child identity theft, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Protection, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo
Based on a recent assessment of 40,000+ SSNs of children, it was found that more than 10% those SSNs were being used by someone other than the child, far in excess of the rate of misuse in the adult population. The study points out the major issues that surround child identity theft and why we need to start paying attention now. It is more prevalent than many think and the threat is growing. Here are a few of the statistics that were found:
- 4,311 or 10.2% of the children in the report had someone else using their Social Security number – 51 times higher than the 0.2% rate for adults in the same population
- Child IDs were used to purchase homes and automobiles, open credit card accounts, secure employment and obtain driver’s licenses
- The largest fraud ($725,000) was committed against a 16 year old girl
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: child identity monitoring, child identity theft, Child Identity Theft Statistics, children, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Statistics, John Sileo, Theft
Sony just admitted this week that their Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) division, which they though was not affected by the recent breach, has also been compromised. They believe that the hackers stole personal information from an additional 25 million users and that the breach included credit card information.
In an unrelated article, Mizuho Investors Securities analyst Nobuo Kurahashi estimated the cost of Sony’s recovery from the data breaches to be approximately $1.25 billion:
Kurahashi estimates that the data breach will cost Sony about Y100 billion, or $1.25 billion from lost business, various compensation costs and new investments–assuming that no additional security problems emerge. The cyber attacks on Sony in recent weeks involved the theft of personal data that include names, passwords and addresses from accounts on its PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment gaming services. Sony has also said that more than 10 million credit-card numbers may have been compromised.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: 25 million, 77 Million, breach, Costs, Data Breach, data security, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, play station hacked, PlayStation, Playstation 2, PlayStation Account, Sony, Sony Breach
