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According to the Christian Science Monitor and other reputable media sources, the marines have banned social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter. Currently, the Pentagon is reviewing its entire policy on the use of social networking sites. Can you imagine the enemy discovering troop locations or military tactical data via social networking? Ironic timing, as just a few weeks ago I was delivering an identity theft speech at the Pentagon and recorded a short video about this problem.
Facebook Privacy & The Pentagon
The Christian Science Monitor ran the following quote from a memo distributed Tuesday to all Marines:
The very nature of [social networking sites] creates a larger attack and exploitation window, exposes unnecessary information to adversaries and provides an easy conduit for information leakage that puts [operational and communication security] personnel and the [Marine Corps network] at an elevated risk of compromise.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention, Online Privacy, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: facebook banned, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, marines, social networking, social networking sites banned
Last week, identity theft expert John Sileo spoke at the Pentagon.
Because his speaking and travel schedule is so heavy at the moment, he hasn’t taken the time to slow down and blog about it. But John wanted to share what it’s like inside the brain of American military power, so we are publishing this post on his behalf. The following is a series of excerpts from comments he made by phone and from a digital recorder he had running as he toured the facility, met with members of the Department of Defense, and presented an identity theft speech to civilian and military leaders. We’ve altered the verbatim audio where necessary to make it understandable.
You can’t tell it’s the Pentagon from the outside because it’s too large…
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: identity theft expert, John Sileo, pentagon
Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo on Traveling Safety.
Traveling Safety has become a study of its own ever since the advent of identity theft. Your biggest concern may no longer be physical in nature (pickpockets, hotel theft, muggings); the value of the personal identity you carry as you travel is worth far more than the cash in your wallet.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Must Read, traveling safety
The TJX security data breach is our fault.
TJX Cos. has been ordered to pay $9.75M in a data breach security lawsuit. The data breach settlement will be awarded to 41 states because TJX failed to protect customers’ financial information from a massive computer breach announced in 2007 that exposed millions of customers’ personal and credit card data to hackers.
The settlement amount is probably the largest ever, and it is comically low.
TJX lost somewhere between 40 and 90 million customer records, and there is a good chance yours was one of them if you shop at T.J. Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods or A.J. Wright. If only 10% of those breached records were ever used to commit identity fraud (let’s say 7.5 million records, to be conservative), at the average cost of identity theft recovery ($700), the damage to you and me is approximately $490 Million. So TJX paid about a 2% penalty for failing to protect our data. They value the safety of our being a customer at about 2%. They care about their own profits about 98%.
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: breach privacy, data breach security, identity theft expert, John Sileo
Security awareness programs (data security education) are drastically lacking in American corporations, and it is leading to an increase in data breach and workplace identity theft.
Look at these numbers about employee data security just released by the Ponemon Institute. They appeared in a post by the Ponemon Institute’s Founder, Larry Ponemon (the quote is theirs, the emphasis, mine):
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: John Sileo, Larry Ponemon, Ponemon Institute, security awareness program, security awareness programs
If I’ve learned one thing as an identity theft expert these past few years, it’s this: As bloggers with something to gain (monetarily) from our daily posts, we do everything we can to veil our advertisements deep within the text. Nearly every blog post has some financial gain tied to it: Google AdWords down the right side of the column, gentle product sales, magazine subscriptions, you name it.
That’s the trade-off: bloggers give you content and in return, you agree to watch our commercials. With a few exceptions (truly altruistic and non-commercial blogs, which do exist), anytime someone tells you that they gain nothing financially from their blog, tell them HOGWASH! They are simply hiding behind their content. When you get something of value, you are paying with something of value. When you read the Wall Street Journal, you agree to at least browse their advertising (however passively). When you read my blog about identity theft prevention, you learn that I speak to corporations and organizations around the world about data breach and identity theft.
Posted in Burning Questions (Video), Identity Theft Prevention, Video Tips by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: identity theft expert, John Sileo, larry winget, Must Read
At the Privacy Project, our success is your nightmare (unless you are my speaking agent).
Business at the Sileo Group and engagements as an identity theft speaker are up 400% compared with the same period last year. I am booked for exactly 4X as many identity theft prevention and privacy leadership speeches in the first quarter of 2009 as I was in 2008; and 2008 brought me more work than I could handle on my own. Some of this is due to an extensive contract with the Department of Defense, but not all of it.
I’m not sharing our success to blow my own horn, though admittedly, it is satisfying to finally share some good news with you after having lost so much to this crime.
I’m sharing because our success gave me cold sweats at 3am this morning.
Why? Because the strength of my business is inversely proportional to the safety of yours. My business is thriving because identity theft is thriving, and that is not my purpose for being in business. I am in the identity theft prevention business to put myself out of a job. When I say it keeps me awake at night, I’m being sincere. At 3am this morning, I spent several hours deciphering the underlying causes responsible for the exploding demand for identity theft speakers… even as the meetings and speaking business has suffered drastically at the hands of the spiraling economy. And then it came to me; I realized that the answer was contained in the question…
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: chertoff, cultureofprivacy, cybercrime, data security, identity theft expert, identity theft speakers, John Sileo, privacy leadership, Sileo
Technology is not the root cause of identity theft, data breach or cyber crime.
We are.
Too often, technology is our scapegoat, providing a convenient excuse to sit apathetically in our corner offices, unwilling to put our money where our profits are. Unwilling, in this case, to even gaze over at the enormous profit-sucking sound that is mass data theft. The deeper cause of this crisis festers in the boardrooms of corporate America. Like an overflowing river, poor privacy leadership flows inexorably downhill from the CEO, until at last, it undermines the very banks that contain it.
The identity theft and data breach bottom line?
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: ceo, corporate espionage, Cyber Crime, data theft, Financial Speaker, id theft, Identity Theft Prevention, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, Must Read, privacy leadership
I’d like to thank the Department of Defense and Grand Forks Air Force Base for bringing me in as the identity theft financial speaker for their Financial Readiness Challenge Campaign today in North Dakota.
During my speech, I promised to give you easy-to-complete action steps to protect your identity against theft, as well as that of your loved ones. I’d like to deliver on that promise by directing you to a full page article I’ve written specifically for you: John Sileo’s Military Identity Theft Protection Kit. If you have additional suggestions for protecting military IDs that I haven’t covered in this article, please include your comments at the bottom of the post. With your input, this conversation should contribute to the financial stability of our armed forces – which is vital, because, as you are aware, financial readiness is mission readiness.
For those of you who asked to purchase a copy of my book, Stolen Lives, you can do so at www.ThinkLikeASpy.com. Be sure you choose the Speaking Engagement Shipping option in your shopping cart as it will give you free shipping.
Here are answers to several additional questions that were asked after my speech:
Posted in Identity Theft Prevention by Identity Theft Speaker John Sileo.
Tags: financial readiness challenge, Financial Speaker, grand forks, Identity Theft Speaker, John Sileo, military id theft, Military Identity Theft
