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I just finished delivering a keynote speech for the Society of Government Meeting Professionals (SGMP) at their annual convention on identity theft and protecting data in the meetings industry. Data security is a top concern in this industry because it is probably one of the most highly-targeted groups for identity theft, social media fraud, data breach and social engineering. Here’s why:
- Meeting professionals collect, store and transmit massive amounts of private data on attendees
- Data theft risk skyrockets when travel is involved, which is a frequent occurrence for meeting planners and professionals
- Meeting professionals are busy nearly 24 hours a day once they are onsite for the conference or meeting, meaning that they are highly distracted
- A single data breach of attendee data can put the organization responsible for the event out of business due to excessive costs and tight compliance regulations
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Conference Speaker, Conferences, CSAE, data security, Data Security Expert, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Keynote Speaker, meeting planners, Meeting Professionals, Meeting Security, Meetings, Meetings Industry, MPI, Privacy, Security, SGMP, Society of Government Meeting Professionals
This week’s news of the theft of private data comes from Citigroup. Seems that even the most reputable organizations can be exposed to the ever-more frequent data breaches we read about. You’ll likely recall the recent news of Sony, PBS, Epsilon and Lockheed Martin. Regrettably, the list is growing by the day. It affects me, and likely, it affects you. Now what?
First, arm yourself with the facts. See the attached articles.
- http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/06/09/citigroup-data-breach-4-tips-to-protect-yourself/
- http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/09/us-citi-idUSTRE7580TM20110609
- http://www.informationweek.com/news/181502068
Second, remember to protect your most important data (this information, on its own, or in any combination, is a jackpot to an identity thief):
- Social Security number
- Date of birth
- PIN
- Credit Card numbers
- Bank Account numbers
- Birthdate
Third, never reply to an e-mail requesting personal information. Unless you originate the communication, suspect the worst and do not respond. This is referred to as “Phishing” and the results are never good.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: breach, Citi, Citibank, Citigroup, Credit Cards, Expert, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo
Just for a minute, put yourself in the shoes of Anthony Weiner. You’ve done something exceptionally stupid, whether it’s sending sexually explicit photos of yourself to strangers you don’t even know, or another unrelated mistake. To compound the stupidity, you involve social networking – you Facebook or tweet or YouTube the act – or even simply email details of what you’ve done.
Everyone of us makes impulsively bad decisions (probably not as bad as Weiner, but bad nonetheless). Prior to the internet, you at least had a chance to recover from your past transgressions, as there wasn’t a readily accessible public record of the act unless you happened to be caught on tape (think Nixon, Rodney King, etc.). But now that pretty much every human carries either a camera or video recorder with them at all times (mobile phones), can communicate instantly with a massive audience (Facebook, Twitter, SMS, blogs), and have access to more information than exists in the Library of Congress just by pulling up Google, the equation of how you control sensitive information about yourself has changed radically. Every stranger (and even friend) is like a full service news station with video, distribution and commentary, just waiting to report on your missteps.
Posted in Digital Reputation & Trust, Fraud Detection & Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Anthony, Congressman, Control, Exposure, information, Information Leadership, John Sileo, Jon Stewart, Privacy, professional speaker, Reputation & Trust, Reputation Expert, twitter, Weiner, Weiner Gate, Weinergate
We can be as patriotic as we want to be, but today, the US lags behind other countries in credit card technology and consumer safety. Our current-day magnetic-strip technology is archaic compared to the chip-embedded cards of our European counterparts. Though some larger US retailers are offering support of the “smart-chip” cards, a mandate for their use (and greater protection for the consumer) is down the road. (Click here for the original story on NPR).
According to Andrea Rock, a senior editor at Consumer Reports who wrote an article about the security gap in the credit card industry (emphasis mine):
“The account information that’s needed to make a transaction on American cards is stored, unencrypted, on a magnetic stripe on the back of each card,”
And that means, until the industry changes, you are at risk. In the mean time, here are a few steps you can take to increase your security:
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Credit Card, encryption, europe, Fraud, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo, magnetic strip, safety, Security, U.S., US
I love Canadian accountants because not only are they some of the warmest people I have met (I speak on identity theft quite a bit in Canada), but they are incredibly eager to learn how to avoid some of the data security mistakes that we have made in the U.S. As accountants, they provide a ton of vital financial advice to their clients, and I can easily see them sharing some of the data security best practices I talked about during the presentation and getting paid well by their clients to do it. And here’s how I could tell their level of absorption: after the speech, they had a slew of detailed follow-up questions. They were curious. You can always tell someone’s intention to act and make changes by their clarification questions. No questions, no interest, no intent to act. Definitely not what I experienced in the charming town of Winnipeg.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Accountants, Canada, Expert, ICAM, Identity Theft Prevention, Institute of Canadian Accountants, John Sileo, Manitoba, Speaker
Dropbox is a brilliant cloud based service (i.e., your data stored on someone else’s server) that automatically backs up your files and simultaneously keep the most current version on all of your computing devices (Mac and Windows, laptops, workstations, servers, tablets and smartphones). It is highly efficient for giving you access to everything from everywhere while maintaining an off-site backup copy of every version of every document.
And like anything with that much power, there are risks. Using this type of syncing and backup service without understanding the risks and rewards is like driving a Ducati motorcycle without peering into the crystal ball of accidents that take the lives of bikers every year. If you are going to ride the machine, know your limits.
This week, Dropbox appears to have altered their user agreement (without any notice to its users), making it a FAR LESS SECURE SERVICE. Initially, their privacy policy stated:
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Fraud Detection & Prevention, Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Cloud, Cloud Computing, Data Breach, data security, Dropbox, Education, Identity Theft Prevention, John Sileo, Privacy Policy, Security, Seminar, Speaker, Terms of Service, training, Workshop
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
A report was recently published claiming that nearly 100,000 Facebook apps have been leaking access codes belonging to millions of users’ profiles. Symantec released the report and said that an app security flaw may have given apps and other third parties access to users’ profiles. Facebook maintains that they have no evidence of this occurring.
In their report, Symantec wrote:
We estimate that as of April 2011, close to 100,000 applications were enabling this leakage. We estimate that over the years, hundreds of thousands of applications may have inadvertently leaked millions of access tokens to third parties.
These “access tokens” help apps interact with your profile.They are most often used to post updates from the application to your wall. When you add the applications to your profile you, as the Facebook user, is giving the apps access to your information by accepting their conditions. According to the investigation, these tokens were included in URLs sent to the application host and were then sent to advertisers and analytics platforms. If the recipient recognized the codes (meaning they have to be qualified to read and write HTML code), they could gain access to the user’s wall’s and profile.
Posted in Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: "Facebook Speaker", Facebook, Facebook apps, Facebook Safety, Facebook Security, John Sileo, Online/Social Media Privacy, Social Media Security, social networking, Social Networking Expert, Social Networking Speaker
At this point, we are all pretty used to the classic Nigerian Scam. Someone who is recently wealthy needs your help to gain access to the funds. They will let you keep $1 million if you will simply send them your bank account number so he can transfer $30 million to you. Its a dream come true to most!
What happens when that same scam is used on Facebook by one of your friends, by someone you trust? The results can be disastrous. One woman was scammed out of $366,000 because she felt sorry for the scammer’s sob story. The woman contacted the local authorities after realizing she had been conned by her Facebook “friend”. Police arrested six male suspects in Kepong, all allegedly connected to the Facebook scam: two Nigerians, two Bangladeshis, and two Malaysians. Investigators only managed to recover $5,000 in cash of the victim’s money, although they also seized 18 ATM cards, seven cell phones, and a laptop.
Posted in Cyber Data Security, Online Privacy by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Facebook, Facebook Safety, Facebook Scams, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Nigerian Scams, social networking, Social Networking Expert, Speaker
I just finished delivering a keynote speech for the Society of Government Meeting Professionals (SGMP) at their annual convention on identity theft and protecting data in the meetings industry. Data security is a top concern in this industry because it is probably one of the most highly-targeted groups for identity theft, social media fraud, data breach and social engineering. Here’s why:
