Home | Solutions Blog | Identity Theft Prevention
Posts tagged "Identity Theft Prevention"
Facebook is preparing to give away your phone number and address to app developers and advertisers.
The frog is officially beginning to boil. Just check out all of the articles swirling around on the internet about Facebook’s latest attempt to release more of your information without your consent. This time they want to give out your phone number and address. They were pretty clear that the reason they want this information is to pass it on to developers of apps such as Farmville and advertisers that want to bolster their profile on you. They released the post late Friday afternoon – so late in fact that many news outlets didn’t pick it up until Monday. Many are accusing Facebook of trying to bury the news.
Here is what was posted:
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: facbook, Facebook, Facebook Address, Facebook Changes, Facebook Phone Number, Facebook Safety, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo, Online/Social Media Privacy, Social Netoworking Expert, social networking, Social Networking Speaker
True. Unless you have chosen to Opt Out (see below), a picture of your home is only one search away on Spokeo.com, even if I don’t have your address.
Check it out for yourself at www.spokeo.com. On most profiles, if Spokeo has your current address, they also have a picture of your home. It is the same as Google Street View, almost. The difference is that on Google Street View or Google Maps, you can’t easily look up someone’s address based on their name and find the corresponding picture of their home.
In other words, Spokeo aggregates your personal data in a more sophisticated way, ultimately giving users the ability to search on your name and peel back layers of your personal information. This has caused a recent web buzz on the subject and is pushing people to go on their site to remove information you don’t want to share with the world. A few months ago I posted a video about removing your information from Spokeo. Here are the steps.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Google Maps, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo, Online Safety, opt out, Picture of My Home, Remove Name, Spokeo, spokeo.com, Street View, white pages
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
Identity theft is all about control. Who has control over your personal and financial information? Is it you, or the criminal on the other end of your computer using your information to apply for a credit card? Losing control of your personal information can be all too easy online. But by taking some precautions, you can maintain privacy while safely surfing the internet.
Here are 5 tips to protect your privacy online:
1. Adjust social-network privacy settings
Facebook has been working to simplify their privacy settings, but they can still be confusing to the average users. Spend about 10 minutes a month making sure that your privacy settings are what they should be and are actually protecting your privacy.
To get there, log in to Facebook, in the top right of your screen it should say “Account” when you scroll over or click on that tab you can see you Privacy Settings. Click here for a step by step process of how to adjust your privacy settings.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Facebook, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo, Online Privacy Tips, Privacy, Privacy Means Profit
The many changes that Facebook has been making recently have users nervous. Nervous because they are lacking the control that they once had over their privacy on the social networking site. While Facebook has never been the mecca of privacy, the recent and swift changes they are making has created more of an issue for users. One by one they are voicing their concerns with the new features and why they feel Facebook is slowly revealing the end of your privacy.
Facebook and privacy issues go hand in hand.
Here are a few of the new features; although they are snazzy, they have many users concerned.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Facebook, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo, Online Safety, Privacy, social networking
Microsoft has announced that the latest version of Internet Explorer will offer users a new anti-tracking privacy feature. This will help prevent marketing and advertising companies from watching where you surf and what you do online without your consent. Users will be able to set their preferences to prohibit companies from obtaining sensitive tracking information. This is a first step in the right direction – browsers should step up as the first line of defense against unwanted information collection.
This comes at a time where advertisers want to reintroduce the use of deep packet inspection in order to more closely watch and market to consumers online. This method reads and analyzes raw packets of your personal data as they travel across the Internet – for obvious reasons deep packet inspection has been the subject of much controversy. Internet users are becoming more aware that what they do online is not private and are beginning to ask for tools to protect their browsers from spying.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Browser, Deep Packet Inspection, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 9, John Sileo, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Spying, Tracking, Tracking Protection Lists, Web Browser Tracking
The month between Thanksgiving and Christmas is the biggest shopping time of the year. As we enter the season of giving there is one thing we should be stingy with – protecting our Identities!
Holiday madness, crazed shoppers and packed malls. While we are bustling from store to store and internet site to internet site trying to complete everyone’s holiday list, thieves and scammers are taking our distraction as a signal to strike. According to the author of Privacy Means Profit and identity theft expert John Sileo, “This is the easiest time of year for thieves to steal wallets, break into houses and profit financially from the season of giving without victims detecting it for a long time.”
With just three weeks until Christmas, now is the time to protect yourself and make sure that your Identity is safe from potential thieves. Just last month, Sileo was hired to speak to the Department of Defense and included some of the most important Holiday Safety Prevention Tips:
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Christmas, CSIdentity, CSidentity Protector, CSIdentity SAFE, holiday, Holiday Scams, Holiday Shopping, holidays, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Thieves, John Sileo, Risk, Safe Shopping, safety, Security
There are many signs that your identity has been stolen, even if you haven’t started to feel the real pain yet. If you detect these signs early, it probably isn’t too late to keep the damage to a minimum if you act quickly. Unless you are already at number 12…
- Your bills or statements are not arriving in your mail on time.
- You notice unauthorized charges on your credit card bill.
- You notice new accounts or erroneous information on your credit report.
- You are denied credit for a large purchase.
- You receive credit card bills from cards you don’t own.
- You are contacted by a collection agency on an item you didn’t purchase.
- You receive bills for unknown purchases.
- You are unable to set up new banking,loan or brokerage accounts.
- You notice withdrawals on your checking or savings account that you didn’t make.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Detecting Identity Theft, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention
Don’t let a Cyber Scrooge Spoil Your Holidays!
Although most shoppers gear up and focus on Black Friday, Cyber Monday offers tons of hot deals to online shoppers. It began in 2005 and quickly became one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. On average, online shopping increases by 16% (worth more than $760 million dollars) on this one day alone!
Shoppers find the appeal in avoiding parking lots at malls, bustling stores and frantic holiday crowds. While it is very convenient, you can also be putting yourself at greater risk for identity theft and credit card fraud if you are not careful. In any situation there are steps you can take to protect yourself and make it easier to detect fraud if you become a victim. If you protect yourself, I feel that you are safer shopping online than in person (where about 15% of identity theft takes place).
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Cyber Crime, Cyber Monday, Cyber Theft, identity theft expert, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Speaker, identity theft speakers, John Sileo, Online Safety, Online Shopping, Online Shopping Safety
