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Recent information available in Britain has shown that popular hotspots can be easily mimicked by thieves, which leaves consumers vulnerable to identity theft.
Tests conducted showed that security experts were able to obtain usernames, passwords and messages from phones using WiFi in public places. The tests all used volunteers so that no actual breach occurred. In cases where the iphone 4 was targeted, the information could be taken and stored without the user even knowing.
This issue is a huge problem for the UK’s nearly 5 million BT hotspots located in train stations, coffee shops, hotels, and airports. While the smartphone service providers have knows about these WiFI security flaws for some time, they have still not done anything about it.
Using inexpensive communication equipment and free software that you can download from the internet, thieves can set up bogus hotspots to start sniffing your personal information. Once you have established a connection with one of these impersonators, whether on a phone or laptop, they can start decrypting your sensitive data.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: British WiFi, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Smartphone, Smartphone wifi, wifi, wifi hotspots, wifi internet, WiFi Security
Apple has been hit with a lawsuit in Florida alleging the company is violating iPhone user’s privacy and committing computer fraud. The case came in response to news that the iPhone maintains a time stamped location log, and that data is also stored on user’s computers.
The lawsuit was filed in Federal court in Tampa Florida on April 25 by two customers who claimed Apple was tracking iPhone owner’s movements without consent, according to Bloomberg.
The case was filed after word that the iPhone and iPad with 3G support maintains an unencrypted log file showing where users are based on cell tower triangulation. That file is transferred to user’s computers during the sync process with iTunes and is maintained as part of the device’s backup file collection.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: 3G, Apple, data security, GPS, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, ipad, iPhone, John Sileo, Keynote Speaker, lawsuit, Location Tracking, Privacy
Sony Corp. on Tuesday admitted that hackers have obtained personal data and possibly credit card information of tens of millions of people who have registered for PlayStation Network, the company’s online game and movie service, as well as its Qriocity digital music service.
PlayStation is a fun game, data breach is not.
As of March 31st, the Sony PlayStation Network has about 77 million accounts. These accounts link users to the network to obtain downloads and access online movies through services like Netflix. While Sony states that not all of the 77 million accounts are active accounts and some individuals have multiple accounts, they are not denying that a breach of information occurred.
The company spokesman, Patrick Seybold, admitted that the hackers not only gained such information as names, addresses, phone numbers, user names, birth dates, email addresses and passwords of registrants; but they are unsure if credit card information was compromised as well. Update: Sony recently announced that an additional 25 million records were breached.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: 77 Million, 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
Major data breaches like the recent Epsilon Breach occur frequently, even if you don’t hear about all of them. With all the publicity surrounding this particular breach, people have been asking how to remove themselves from some of those marketing lists that are frequently compromised.
Opting our of marketing databases is one way to lower your risk of becoming a data breach victim.
So, how do I get out of marketing data bases?
Most databases allow you to opt out of having them share and sell your information, you just need to find out how. Many sites make it tricky to get this done, but most sites that are selling or harvesting your information allow you to do so one way or another.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Data Breach, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo, Online Safety, opt out, Removal, Remove, Spokeo, spokeo.com, white pages
When will corporations learn? I received 6 data breach emails yesterday because of the Epsilon’s lack of security.
Have you been inundated with more spam and phishing emails recently? If so, it may be due to one of the largest email and data breaches in Internet history. Epsilon is one of the world’s largest providers of marketing-email services and they handle more than 40 billion emails annually and more than 2,200 global brands.
Epsilon issued the following statement: “On March 30th, an incident was detected where a subset of Epsilon clients’ customer data were exposed by an unauthorized entry into Epsilon’s email system. The information that was obtained was limited to email addresses and/or customer names only.”
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Data Breach, Data Breach Expert, Email, Epsilon, identity theft expert, John Sileo, Spam
A close friend of mine just had his Facebook account taken over and used for pretty nasty things, so… this is just a quick reminder to change your Facebook password frequently for added security. If you have been a member for years, like most people, and have not ever changed your password, I recommend you do so right now (don’t wait, you’ll never do it later).
On a site like Facebook that houses so much of your personal reputation and information, it is good to keep passwords new and difficult to hack. We see people’s Facebook profiles get hacked every day from clicking on malware and phishing schemes – and once they have your Facebook password, they probably have the same password you use on other accounts. Changing your password frequently, as simple as it sounds, is an easy way to avoid some of the privacy problems posed by Facebook. Once you are logged in, visit your Account Settings Page. On the first page next to Password click change.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Account Takeover, Change Facebook Password, Change Password, Facebook, Facebook Password, Facebook Safety, Facebook Safety Survival Guide, Fraud, identity theft expert, malware, Online/Social Media Privacy, Password, Security, social networking
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Identity Theft still tops the annual list of consumer complaints. The list was released last Tuesday and Identity Theft was #1 for the 11th year in a row with more than 250,000 complaints. Identity theft accounts for 19% of all consumer complaints received by the FTC last year.
Why is this such a lingering, time-tested problem? Because most people, most businesses, read about it being such a terrible problem, and then go off an do little about it. Corporations fail to train their employees on personal identity theft, and that lack of skill and prevention framework seeps into the workplace. This, in turn, leads to the loss of more data, customer records, employee files and intellectual capital.
The report also states that the Miami-Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. area ranks #1 in the nation for identity theft complaints per capita. Number 2 on that list is Brownsville, Texas followed by Dunn, N.C.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Consumer Complaints, FTC, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo
In a town with a population of about 3,000 people it seems that almost all the citizens of Bennett, Colorado have had their identity stolen. The scheme was simple and it was easy to fall victim. Identity thieves apparently used skimmers to extract credit and debit card numbers from individuals. Skimmer scams can happen when the criminal installs a “skimming” device over the card slot of an ATM, debit or credit card reader. The skimmer then reads the magnetic strip as the user unknowingly passes their card through it.
In the case of Bennett, Colorado it is believed that this was done at a local King Soopers gas pump. The skimmer is gone now and authorities are on the hunt for the thief. King Soopers has denied that any of the fraudulent activity happened at their gas pumps and authorities have also said that they knew this was a crime spree for the past few weeks. In the meantime, many of the victims who used debit cards are without those funds because its the same as using cash. The average amount stolen was around $700 and more people are coming forward every day.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Bennett, Colorado, credit card fraud, Debit Cards, Fraud, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo, Skimmers, Skimming
In response to the growing demands for more privacy on the internet, Mozilla implements a Do Not Track option in Firefox 4.
The most recent version of Mozilla Firefox, which was rolled out this February, offers users the option to opt-out of website tracking. Once enabled, the user’s preference to not be tracked is automatically sent to the website. That doesn’t mean that the website has to do anything about it, but there will probably be a bit of a stink about those sites that don’t respect user’s privacy preferences (it would be the equivalent of someone making a sales call to you after you join the Do Not Call list). Unfortunately, most users will never know which websites are participating in the opt-out Do Not Track function.
Learn more about Firefox’s Do Not Track Technology and about the Big Brother issues posed by companies tracking your every move on the internet.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Do Not Track, Firefox 4, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Mozilla, Online Safety, Online Security, Web Bowser Safety
